Sudden Burst of Speed
by CRose
Summary: Ranma gets a chance to experiance the fabled Speed Force first hand, this is the story of his first adventure.
1. Chapter 00

Notes - This an idea that me and a friend have been working on for a couple of months now. A Ranma/Flash crossover set during the time when Wally West first entered the speed force and the while concept of the The Flash started to take on an entirely different type of story and richer history. I will be touching on various bits of the history presented in flash issues 95-100 in this chapter as it goes along. I've tried and failed at doing a Flash crossover before when I first got the idea, let me know if you think we've pulled it off with this one.  
  
**********  
  
Sudden Burst of Speed  
  
Chapter 00  
  
Cory D. Rose - ertle2@msn.com  
  
BlindmanX - blindmanx@hotmail.com   
  
(c) 2003  
  
**********  
  
In a temple deep in the mountains, there was old in a room of the temple where no one ever went. For months on end this part of the temple would stand abandoned except for the priest that would walk through it halls twice a week to make sure that everything was where it should be. Today the temple has a couple of guests, a father and a son, and the priest was no where to be seen. They had stumbled on rumors of the place just hours before and the father set out to find it as quickly as possible. He had gotten quite excited when they found the place and instantly dragged his son along for the ride as they went through an open window. The father was a forty-ish, slightly overweight man who had a taste for any kind of food and had a white kerchief over his balding head. He was laughing to himself at how easy it had been to get into the temple while his son followed along grumbling about how much of an idiot his old man was. To the son an old tale about a long forgotten chi technique that would make one move like lightning was too much for someone like his father to resist. The son knew better, this wasn't the first time his father had pulled something like this and he had all but given up trying to stop the guy.   
  
He knew this was a bad idea and had tried several time to talk his old man out of going into the temple to get what he wanted to steal, but like always he had no say in this mater. Most of the time he tried to keep out of the way when his father did something like this, but today he had no choice, so he just stood next to his father looking just lightly out of place in the shadow of his old man's greed and sighed. They had been walking through this place for about half an hour now and left in their wake several room full of over turned beds and dressers as his old man tried to pick the place clean. Stopping his old man was out of the question, at thirteen he just didn't have the skill to make his old man stop and would have ended up unconscious if he tried. He didn't want to spend yet another night draped over his old man's shoulder for trying to keep him from stealing something.   
  
It took the father several minutes to find the main room of the temple, break into the wooden case set on a raised dais in the middle of the room and grab a small book. He crowed as it was opened for the first time in two hundred years and danced a little jig. The son rolled his eyes and shuddered a little as he recalled the last time something like this happened. Then had to stand back and watch as the moron pulled out his tanto and used it to prize several expensive looking gems out of the wall of the room. The boy figured that they would be enough to keep them funded for the next few months, then shook his head, the gems would last about a week as his father bought as much sake as he could and got falling down drunk. Then the small book was shoved into his hands and the father kicked a wooden case along the wall and pulled three scrolls out of the destruction and held them high and laughed some more.  
  
This would've been an almost perfect theft, a quick break and grab if you will, if only the father hadn't been such a moron and started giggling to himself a little louder than he had been. With all the previous noise of the ransacking, the son was amazed that no one had shown up yet for him to knock out. So he did the only thing he could think of and left the father to his warped humor and made his way out of the temple as fast as he could. It wasn't much of a surprise that the camp was empty when he returned about an hour later. The boy, Ranma Saotome, was experienced enough to know that his father had decided to do something else when he left.   
  
They had been using this cave for a week so he knew that there was no possibility of the old man getting lost. So he sat down and pulled out the book and started to read it in detail to see what it held, never again would he leave training from scrolls up to his old man. Not after he had been forced to endure the Neko-ken training when he was six. Barely seven years later and he still owed his old man a good hard kick in the ass over that little incident. He glanced up as thunder rumbled in the distance and it started to rain, luckily the sun was still up enough for him to read by. Being on the road for all this time had taught him to respect the weather.  
  
As he finished off the book the boy realized that it was a good thing they had grabbed the scrolls after all, the book was like a description of the technique and what it was useful for. It was the scrolls themselves that explained just how the technique worked and he could tell that because of another technique he had learned a couple years ago he would pick up the technique with ease. Surprisingly one of the things the scrolls insisted on was a thunderstorm, a strong one that filled the sky with lightning. After some of the training his father put him threw lately he was actually kind of surprised he hadn't already picked this up, but he could tell that he already had the Ki control required to pull it off already. His path was set though, and he figured that he would pick the technique up easily. He even had to wonder why his father had broken into the temple to steal this things; what a waste of time. He hoped the moron got arrested and had to spend a few weeks in jail for petty theft while he learned this while the weather was working in his favor.  
  
The most difficult thing was getting his mind into the right focus and would take quite a bit of meditation on his part, but he could tell just by looking out the cave entrance that it would be several hours before the storm reached it's peak and he could begin. So he took up his normal meditation by balancing on his head and reread everything to see if he could glean any extra information from them before beginning the next step. At the same time he slowly worked his way through the mind set described, to be aware, but not aware and what he had to do in order to focus his Ki into a pillar several feet above his head. He wasn't to sure why the pillar was necessary, but this wouldn't be the first time he did something without learning all the potential ramifications, he was a student of Anything Goes after all. Even the mud slide training to increase his balance on a moving material had been like that, though later he had recalled something from a movie they saw a few earlier and remembered something similar happening in the movie, though with ice. He thanked all the gods that existed that the old fart hadn't just copied the movie though, him and ice didn't get along to well.  
  
So it was a few hours later when the storm had grown so huge that he couldn't even see the sun clearly that he got up and left the safety of the cave without a look of determination on his face. He knew he was in the right frame of mind, form his Ki into the right shape, and had no fears of failure. There was no way this technique would beat him. It was his and no stupid storm was going to make him give it up. The scrolls had said a night like tonight, with a giant lightning display, would help him reach into greater highs of speed that only the gods were capable of achieving. Ranma grinned in anticipation as shouted the mantra, "Ride the Lightning!" And with that he took the took a step and started to run through the woods around the cave, slowly forming his Ki, focusing his mind, and quickly achieving his fastest running speed as the storm raged overhead. Lightning and thunder filled the sky and nearly deafened him as he ran along, dodging trees and going as fast as he could. In almost no time he reached open ground and headed across without a bit of thought.   
  
The technique was simple for him, as it did not cost him, any thing to learn it was the kind of technique he liked to learn, easy and quick. He knew that something was coming, though the scrolls had been kind of vague on just what it was, just that his Ki was required to be formed the way it was. So he ran and concentrated, within minutes he had traveled over two miles from the cave and started weaving his way back to the camp. He didn't want to get to far away if he could help it and he could have gotten lost in this storm. After about half an hour he was just beginning to find his second and focused his center a little more by letting out a regular slow breath that allowed him to ignore the elements around him. It didn't take him long to enter the mental state he needed to be in, but it did take him a moment more to bring out his small battle aura. All around him the rain seemed to be getting worse and worse, already he had witnessed several trees being struck by lightning as he passed in and out of the forest around him.   
  
The off white gi he always wore mirrored the lightning in the background as his light blue aura came into being and his Ki entered the visible spectrum made the bar of Ki above his head visible for the first time. It was something for him to be proud of as well, most masters twice his age couldn't do this, but he could with a growing ease that was almost scary. But now wasn't the time for him to think about those things, it was the time for him to learn the technique and he was beginning to wonder just how long he would have to run for before anything happened. Then the little hairs on the back of his neck started to tingle like when his old man was about to ambush him and for a split second there was a flash of light that filled the world and everything seemed to vanish. All sight, sound, taste, all his senses seemed to go haywire. All at once and for a brief moment he could taste the rainwater as it passed over his skin, hear the muscles in his body as they contracted and relaxed, and wondered why the air around him seemed to be full of static electricity.  
  
**********  
  
Genma Saotome was having an enjoyable night, one of the best he's had in quite a long time in fact. It was if all, his prayers had been answered by the gods. He was a simple man and had simple wishes, a strong son who would do what he was told, easy money, and free food. So far he had accomplished the last two with this one short stop. He had found a good fist full of priceless gems that he planned to sell at the first opportunity and then had come something that he hadn't believed at first. Something that he had never seen before and had no way to understand, just that it was the answer to and almost constant need of his. His son, the wimp, had actually left the temple before checking over all the rooms and missed out on the fulfillment of his third greatest desire as he gaped at the treasure before him and drooled. The room was covered in shelves, nearly fifteen feet high and filled to the ceiling with food! He had never seen a larder so full and he was going to be full for the first time in years once he finished this place off, but he would have to hurry. Those priests would come to check on this place eventually and he didn't want to be here when they did, he'd cleaned out all the gems he could find. Now he was alone with his ill-gotten wealth and a roomful of food and his son wasn't around. Genma was of the mind that this night was truly blessed as he reached for some of the grapes. Especially after finding all the food he could handle, it might even fill him up, just sitting in a room with religious symbols and a bit of dust. Genma just laughed to himself as he thought of how foolish these people were in between eating there offerings as fast as he hands could get to his mouth, at Saotome speed this meant the taste was relatively brief.  
  
Up above, a man in a cloak knelt on the floor and looked through the offering hole down into the room below as Genma ate and glanced over at his partner. "Should we stop this fool, Master?" The kneeling figure asked to the man in a red robe that stood beside him with a half smirk on his face.  
  
"…" The red robed man said as he glanced down into the room that they only entered once a month to clean, a job that everyone of the priests dreaded with a passion. The smell alone was always enough make them gag even at the best of times, but the fool below had stumbled on the place before true purpose of the room came into being.  
  
The first gray cloaked person turned to the second with a sigh he asked, "Could you please tell me what '….' means?" Still watching Genma eat from the pile for slightly old fruit, bread, and most especially...meat.  
  
The second gray-clocked person looked for a moment at the first and then said, "Trust me, you really don't want to know." With a slight shutter they continued to watch Genma ate the spoiling food. It wasn't noticeable just by looking at the food, but room was used to get rid of things that weren't edible anymore by spreading up the decomposition.   
  
"You know I almost feel sorry for the bowel pains that guy will get in a few hours… almost, then I saw what he did to the main room of the temple and I have to think that the guy is going to get what he deserves." The First cloaked person said to the second as they witnessed Genma eat an under cooked pig's leg while drinking orange juice that was several days past its expiration date. They were amazed that he hadn't noticed just how bad the food was.   
  
"Well at least we're getting rid of all that bad food and on the plus side, we won't have to clean the room this month. That is a blessing from the gods. So if he wants to let his butt feel the three day burn who are we to judge?" The second clocked person shrugged as he watched Genma eat, what at one time, had been a months worth of Mexican TV dinners that had to be put aside because of a three week hold over in port. "But then again after the Mistress told us about his dealing with his own son. Well… I say leave him to his meal… For an hour longer or if he finishes everything, then we can run him off. The exercise alone will speed the digestion process up quite a bit. OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH!"  
  
Genma's hands blurred as his went threw the four day old bread as he again toasted to his good fortune, coming to the temple that had a room like this was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Not realizing that in less then three hours he would find out the true meaning of 'the hardships of the road' he snarfed down what he took to be jello and moved onto a roasted pie.   
  
"Are you sure we shouldn't chase him out of here, the smell alone is just making me sick." The first shrugged and chuckled as Genma finished off the bottled prunes. "I say we give him a good chase once he finishes most of it off and get his heart pumping, then we can sit back and smell the results… from a good distance."  
  
"Heh… deal." The second said as he kept on watching the show of the glutton at his role in life.   
  
And boy did Genma learn a lesson.  
  
***********  
  
There once existed a man with many faces. No he wasn't a shape changer or even an alien with weird abilities. He was a perfectly normal human that at one time had been thrust into a position that gave him a second chance at life. Ever since then he'd lived his life one day at time, slowly learning the limits of his new abilities and fighting for what he believed in. Because of this he was one of a small handful of men that could be in the running for the title of The Fastest Man alive, but it wasn't a title he was after. He had other goals in mind for he had given away that particular title to one who was more deserving long, long ago. When it came to his life and how he lived, time meant almost nothing because even though he wasn't immortal he did have the power to move through time if he timed things just right. Even at the moment he was considering making another try at his original goal, sitting in the middle of a small forest out side Keystone City meditating and allowing the very power that gave him his incredible powers to flow and ebb within him.   
  
For the first time in a long while he had to admit that he was getting frustrated with current events. He was old now, and even after all these years of doing what he to do for survival he was tired. Unfortunately he didn't want to experience death, but to achieve the goal that had eluded him for so long. He liked life and got a kick out of feeling useful as he helped people and didn't care one whit if the fools he saved mistook him for someone else because of the blue and white in his costume. No, what he wanted was to prove that he had lived a life that meant something to someone. He had saved lives and performed his duty for so very long and would continue to so for some years to come. His connection to the powers that fueled him managed to keep him in excellent shape and perfect health.   
  
His connection to this power was better than most and there was only one person on the while planet that knew more than him and there was no way he even wanted to think of that psychopath as a person to ask a favor from. So for the past few hours he had been trying to delve deeper into his power to figure out what it was that was bothering him and come quite close on several occasions already. The tap his power and let it flow through him at just the right amount of speed to read it's currents and find and understanding within himself and for his troubled mind. He called it The Speed Force, a form of energy that allowed him to run at speeds that seemed to go against even the hard core truths of physics at times. Just as he was about to relax for a few minutes before he tried again to reach what he wanted, he was distracted by a distinct arc of power as the Speed Force seemed to resonate all around him like a tuned guitar string.   
  
His eyes narrowed and he concentrated a little harder to bring that feeling to the forefront of his mind so he could study it a little closer. It was a rather vague feeling, but if he wasn't mistake he'd just felt someone connect to the Speed Force for the first time. It was one of the few things he'd never experienced before and even now he suspected that he wouldn't have even noticed it if he hadn't been meditation and studying the energy as it flowed all around him. The first connection was the most dangerous one, because it was like taking a child and tossing them out of a plane with a parachute and telling them to pull the cord if they wanted to survive the fall. A child couldn't even understand what was going on around them at times so the first time the speed force was access it tended to cull the weak ones out as they killed themselves by accident.   
  
He had to get to them before something happened and if he was to slow...  
  
**********  
  
Some time later Genma was on his way back to the camp site, having stopped in a nearby village to stock up on some things they needed. On his way back he literally stumbled across his son, tripping over him as he lay in the middle of an open field several miles from their camp. The ground around his body was charred and black, he wasn't sure as he bent down to examine the boy, but it almost looked like he'd been hit by a massive lightning bolt or something similar. The boy's gi was a total wreck, burned off of his body almost completely and the faintest hint of smoke still wafting off of his body. When he reached down to turn the boy over and get a better look at him he howled as electricity seemed to flow out of Ranma's body and hurl him away like a rag doll.   
  
He landed on his shoulder and rolled with the impact before coming to his feet and letting the momentum of the fall fade away as he slid about ten yards. Smoke was coming off his arms where he'd tried to guard against the sudden eruption of energy and he glared at the boy from behind his glasses. Taking a deep breath he heard the boy suddenly moan a little and start to move around and sighed a bit. If the boy had died there was no way he could ever go home to his wife, she would have beheaded him in an instant and that was the last thing he wanted to deal with at the moment. There was something odd going on here, but he would worry about it later. From the looks of the boy he figured it would be some time before the lazy little good for nothing woke up so he decided to lug the boy back to camp and let him recover there.  
  
The trip with Ranma on his shoulder wasn't something that Genma normally did, hell he was half tempted to just leave him there and let him make his way back to camp on his own. That's what he wanted to do, but even he didn't want to have to look for the boy if he didn't return, so keeping him close was the best option. Then 'it' happened and Genma stopped dead and felt funny. Not funny ha ha, more like slipping on a banana peel and tumbling down several flights of stairs and bouncing just right to land between a couple of trash cans funny. Then the pain started and for a moment he couldn't figure out what was going on, then he recalled that little feast he'd eaten earlier. He bellowed as he ran for the camp, they were close enough anyway and there was something in his tent that would settle his stomach.   
  
He rounded a couple of trees with Ranma's body flapping in the wind behind him with little bolts of lightning arching out every now and then. It wasn't like Genma would ever notice as he did the only thing some one camping in the middle of nowhere had to do. He tossed Ranma to the ground the instant he hit the campsite and dove into his tent, grabbed a roll of toilet paper out of his bag and made for the nearest tree like a bull charging a red flag. If conscious Ranma would have been laughing at his old man's fate and insulting him the whole time, but Genma got off luck on that account. Instead in the hours that followed the nightmare of Genma Saotome began as his theft of all that bad food at the temple took it's justified revenge in the only way it could. Mercy wasn't a tenant of the Saotome School of Martial Arts, Genma never practiced any and Ranma would have had to look the word up to find out what it meant. In the forest around the camp all sound died except Genma's whimpering only to have even that shattered a few seconds later.  
  
Genma screamed as his worst nightmare came to life and cursed all temples and their free food.   
  
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"  
  
Some nearby birds who were still sheltering from the light fall of rain that was left over from the earlier storm to flight from the noise, bursting out of the nearby trees where they had been hiding and flew for their lives. They chirped at each other as they flew to the unending scream of pain and agony coming from Genma's concealed position beside a larger tree. Ranma, still unconscious rolled over with a spark and didn't stir even as Genma started to really feel the burn that was coming.  
  
Fingers touched the scrying pool that the clocked figures stood around as they watched the scene with huge grins in their faces and laughed out loud at each new and creative sound Genma made. "Man that was pain!"  
  
The other next to him just looked at his companion and put another handful of popcorn in his mouth and shrugged. "You were right, it was well worth the wait to expend the energy on this pool to watch him."   
  
The First looked back on the sight of Genma with a small grin. "Pass the popcorn."  
  
"What do we tell the others though?"  
  
"Not to worry, the guy only got away with some of the jewels and a few of the more esoteric scrolls. He didn't even get into the main room and took the 'bait' room instead."  
  
"I've never heard this before."  
  
"It was on a need to know basis and there was something of value in that room that they did get, but totally useless to anyone except a master of the fighting arts."  
  
"Those two were martial artists you know."  
  
"So what? You expect me to believe that a couple morons like that could actually learn that technique? Hah!" The first yelled and started to laugh.  
  
"Yeah..hehehe..." The second one said a bit nervously.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Nothing!"  
  
**********  
  
His bright blue eyes snapped open and for a second he thought he could see yellow-ish white lightning arching around him, but it vanished after he blinked a few times. What in the world had happened to him? He could feel that every muscle in his body ached for some reason and he could tell that it wasn't from one of the normal beatings he endured on an almost daily basis. This felt different, really different and kind of freaky and it didn't help that his head hurt. Light was filtering through the trees above him and he could tell that it was coming from the wrong direction than is should have.  
  
A few seconds later he determined that he had been out cold or unaware of his surroundings for close to ten hours for the sun to have moved that much. It had to be early morning now and the last thing he remembered was sometime, before sundown of what he figured had to be the day before as he ran through the obstacle course. His father had set up for him to develop better reflexes and a lot better speed than what he could currently achieve. He blinked and realized that he couldn't move his arms or legs and that his whole body was tingling. Straining as much as he could he grit his teeth against the pain and forced his arm to raise off the ground about an inch or so, it took five minutes and felt like he was straining against some giant unseen weight.  
  
"What ha...ppen..ed..." He croaked out.  
  
The head of Genma Saotome, with a half eaten chicken leg in his mouth appeared in his vision a few seconds later and looked down at him. "It's about time you woke up, it's been three days!"  
  
"Wha..."  
  
"Wimp! Pussy! You failed your training and gave up just because a little lightning bolt hit you in the chest!"  
  
"Li..ghtn..ing?!" Ranma gasped. Why wasn't he dead?  
  
Genma glared at him and Ranma had to wonder if he was about to be attacked, after all the old man had done so the last time he was sick and throwing up all over the place. After all a martial artist didn't get sick according to his father. At thirteen, Ranma had endured the kinds of pain that very few people have ever endured and he had done most of it voluntarily for the most part. After all he was the heir to his family school and that was the whole reason he was here on the road with his old man. He blinked in surprise when Genma slammed the bucket of chicken down next to his head and upped the glare a little.  
  
"Your dinner is in there, two pieces left, if you aren't up in five minutes you will lose them. Understand?" Genma muttered to himself about having a failure for a son as he walked back over to the fire and sat down with a grunt.  
  
"Y...es." Ranma croaked again.  
  
Taking a deep breath Ranma focused past the pain and slowly sat up with a loud groan and spent a few precious seconds gasping for air. Everything that had hurt before seemed to ache even worse now that he was moving. He had to consciously force his hands to stop shaking as he crawled to his knees, but he could tell that his body was slowly loosening up a bit. He wasn't exactly sure why he wasn't dead because being hit by a lightning bolt was supposed to be fatal. Shaking his head he pushed himself to his feet and had to suppress a scream of pain as a wave of pain traveled up both legs and made his hair stand on end.  
  
"Quite playing around you baby! Eat your dinner and do some stretches, you have to regain what you lost with this set back."  
  
"Yeah, yeah..." Ranma muttered as he slowly picked up the bucket and saw that the two pieces of chicken were probably the two smallest ones that had been in the bucket. Make that buckets, there were four others tossed about the camp, empty except for chicken bones and a rather large stain on the front of his old man's gi. Then he noticed something odd with his one free hand, it was still shaking and no matter how much he strained he didn't seem to be able to stop it. Glaring down at the thing his eyes tripled in size as electricity started to arc across his fingers.  
  
His jaw dropped in shock and he barely kept the nearly empty bucket of chicken from falling to the ground. The lethargic feeling of his body seemed to disappear as the electricity jumped from finger to finger. It was a rainbow colored arc of electricity too, something he had never heard of before. As the stuff neared his clothing it seemed to change to match it's color, some how blending in and amplifying itself in some way he didn't understand. Flexing his arm allowed the electricity to travel from his hands and down his arm as it moved and the pain in his body all but vanished into a dull ache after a few seconds.   
  
"Pops! What the hell is going on?!" Ranma screamed, now he was starting to get a little frightened and didn't care what his old man would say about it.   
  
"Pops!?" He yelled again and turned to look at his old man and had to stop in shock.  
  
Genma was about a foot and a half away with his hand already halfway into the bucket trying to steal the last of the chicken. What shocked Ranma the most was the fact that the old man seemed to be frozen in place. He stumbled back several paces and was astonished to find that the bucket seemed to stay in place after he let go of it. Ranma wasn't yet the man among men he would one day become, at thirteen he was just a talented braggart that had mastered enough martial arts to be very dangerous. He didn't yet have the control he would one day achieve and that was why he panicked and the lighting swirled around his body and he turned to run. In an instant he achieved a level of speed he had never traveled at before, but in his head long rush to get away from the freaky lightning that was following him he just tried to run faster and faster without paying attention to what was around him.  
  
He didn't have the skill to understand that he had touched something created by the god of speed Mercury/Hermes, only that he had to get away. To get away before whatever it was consumed him completely. He kept his eyes closed as he ran and didn't notice has he went through objects or when they exploded in his wake. Nor would he have because by the time they detonated he was a thousand miles away and accelerating. He could hear the eerie spark and crackle of the lightning as it lapped at his heels and wanted to scream in fear as it conjured up visions within his mind of his death being just one misstep away. He ran across the surface of the ocean and didn't even have the presence of mind to think about all the natural laws he was breaking at that moment. All he wanted was to get away, this thought consumed him so much that he didn't even have time to think of anything else as he ran. Leaving a trail of destruction behind him thousands of miles long.  
  
This destruction was what first brought Ranma to another speedsters attention. Ranma blew by him moving so fast that even after images had to take a few seconds to form before they to vanished into thin air. The man was after him like a shot and almost instantly realized that the feeling he'd gotten just little while earlier was this kid getting access to the Speed Force and was to panicked to understand what had happened. His eyes narrowed as he concentrated and the lightning flowed off him in a long wave as he accelerated beyond his normal cruising speed and slowly started to catch up with Ranma. Normally he wouldn't have even noticed Ranma's achievement as the connection with the speed force was made, buy he'd been immersed in his meditation within its energies to feel the connection as it took effect.   
  
It was usually a relatively passive thing as well, but this one was different in some odd way that he couldn't quite place his finger on. Yet in another way it was very familiar to him as it reminded him of the day he'd first gotten his own connection to the speed force. Though at the time he'd been a little more prepared for it to take hold of him than the kid probably was. As he ran he concentrated on the energy trail the kid was leaving behind and passed through it a few times to get a feel for it and noticed that it was almost as if it was out of phase with the normal energies of the Speed Force, and the boy's fear wasn't helping matters in any way. Max began to realize that the kid was getting faster and faster as they ran and it was becoming a struggle just to just catch up. The kid had just to much of a lead on him and the only person that he knew that could do it was Wally. Unless he pushed himself to the speeds that would start to make this whole chase beyond dangerous and into suicidal.  
  
He didn't have time to go and get Wally West, the current Flash and from the color of the energy bleed off of energy around them he could tell that they were moving into dangerous territory. Then they passed the speed that mad the world turn into nothing but a blur and they passed from the physical world into a slightly more energized one that allowed them to run faster and faster. So fast that even light seemed to slow down just a little bit and he had to grit his teeth as he started to feel the siren call of the Speed Force calling him once again and cursed his luck. He could feel the barrier to the speed force as they neared the speed of light and knew that one of them would most likely not make it if he didn't find some way to stop the kid before he passed beyond. In just the time he had been following the panicked kid they had circled the globe several times. At speeds like this planetary distances meant nothing at all.   
  
This kids connection to the Speed Force was quite remarkable as well, even Wally hadn't managed to go even a tenth this speed for over half a decade or more and he'd had lots of practice. Though he had to admit that Wally was total idiot when it came to actually using his mind for anything other than a battering ram, so maybe this kid was smart enough to or good enough to learn things at an accelerated rate of speed. Then he shook his head for giving the kid to much credit and chalked it up to the kids fear and an adrenal response to that very fear. There was no way he could yell to the kid either, they had surpassed the speed of sound long ago and for him to talk to the kid he had to be beside or in front of him. Something that was turning out to be surprisingly, hard to do even at this speed. They flashed through a city and Max winced as the kids arm grazed a telephone pole and it exploded. This kid was going to speed the rest of his life in jail if they ever found out just who was blowing things up along their speed wake.  
  
"I have got to stop this kid...oh no..." He muttered to himself just as the kid actually seemed to get faster and start pulling ahead by several seconds at least. Max could only watch as the kids clothing suddenly gave out and vaporized just as he passed the point of no return.   
  
Almost instantly Ranma was tiny spot in the distance as he sped towards the horizon and it would have amazed him to know that this whole thing had taken less than five minutes in real time. Then the sound of the lightning vanished, the sense of danger passed, and he got faster and faster. His eyes opened a little and for first time he noticed that he seemed to have entered some kind of tunnel made up of rainbow colored lightning. It would have shocked him to see that his blue eyes had taken on the rainbow like consistency of the tunnel as he ran. Arcing out and covering his body like a sheath of warm energy. He thought to slow down entered his mind just as he slammed into a barrier of lightning and passed through into a world of lightning with a scream.   
  
**********  
  
Max Mercury came to a stop in the middle of Kansas and hung his head in defeat. "Damn! I wasn't able to get him in time."  
  
He staggered over to a nearby broken down tractor and slumped down next to its back wheel and gasped for air. Whatever had happened to give that kid the power of the Speed Force had just resulted in yet another death he couldn't prevent. In a way he envied him even more for on his first run he had achieved something that had eluded him several times before. Deep down he knew it wasn't his fault, but he just couldn't accept yet another death on his hands. Those who crossed over were never heard from again. In all history no one using the Speed Force had ever been able to come back as far has he knew. He didn't even have any idea of who the kid was, just that he was now in the realm of pure speed and perhaps reached a kind of home in the afterlife.   
  
He glanced up as a blood red blur seemed to just appear beside him and he glanced over to see Wally West, The Flash, looking down on him.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"I failed."  
  
"What?!" Wally asked, somewhat confused because he had no idea what was going on.  
  
With a sigh Max turned and studied Wally for a moment before speaking. "Nothing, I just seem to have lost someone with out realizing it."  
  
"Uh… sorry to hear that Max… look I came here to get your help… you see, I don't have a lot of time left to train Bart in the ways of speed and I need your help." Wally said rubbing his hand behind the back of his mask. The movement made him look younger then he was but with the way the Speed Force look like it was now reacting to Wally it looked like is was time for some… revelation.  
  
**********  
  
Euphoria was a term that few could truly comprehend, but at that exact moment Ranma Saotome knew what it meant as the feeling filled his soul. Lightning was flowing though the very air for as far as he could see, it caressed his body and arched back into the air as he stood there gaping at the sight before him. For the first time in his life he felt like he truly belonged to something, that he was whole once more. The rainbow like lightning filled his body as he gave himself over to the feelings that filled him with such wonder. He was home, a place he had never had a chance to see or even visit and it was perfect. There was no sense of time as he let his form simply dissolve away and he became one with the storm of power all around him and he lost all sense of time and space. He embraced the storm and controlled it with barely a nudge from his mind.   
  
He had never dreamed that anything like this could exist and never wanted to give it up for anything. So why was some nut rocking the boat? Then all that changed and his perfect example of heaven was shattered as the very storm he had embraces seemed to twang for just the barest billionth of a second and it was suddenly like trying to swim upstream against the currents of power and he panicked in confusion. Something moved past him as he struggled and then it grabbed him, yanked him from heaven, and threw him into hell. For the first time in a lifetime he could hear again, feel and see the cold inhumane world that is reality and Ranma wants nothing to do with it.   
  
He crawls to his feet, naked as the day he was born and glares around the area around him in pure rage. All around him is a devastated ruin of what had once been a huge city, but all that was left of it was a pile of rubble for hundreds of yards in every direction. There are people standing around wearing skin tight outfits, one in blue and white, another in red and white. It takes a second, but he quickly spots the one he's looking for kissing a girl in the rubble just out of sight of the others and his eyes narrow as a rage unlike anything he's ever experienced over comes him and he screams. Lightning fills the sky and for a brief second he realizes that it's raining and in that instant he realizes just who he's dealing with. Ranma knew who the Flash was, everyone in the world knew who the Flash was and what his powers were, even that there was more than one Flash. He was one of a small handful of superheros that didn't bother with a secret identity, though Ranma couldn't recall just what it was exactly. This was the man that had just cast him into hell and he wouldn't get away with it now that Ranma had someone to blame.  
  
"YOU!!" Ranma screamed in Japanese.  
  
Wally West and his girlfriend Linda Park cried out as Ranma screamed a second time, loud enough to catch everyone's attention as they all turned to see the naked teenager for the first time. Wally gaped at the kid and tried to figure out where he had come from and had to just enough time to blink as a powerful wave of pure speed force formed around the kid and he shot forward to deck him across the jaw at about mach two. Linda screamed as Wally was knocked the length of the room and the naked teenager stood before her arcing speed force from the floor and across his body as he seethed with rage. She could tell that he was talking under his breath, but didn't recognize the language.   
  
"No! I just got him BACK!" Linda screamed.  
  
"What the hell?!" Wally yelled as he staggered to his feet. He'd barely been able to reduce the speed and power of the attack before it hit him. His newly learned instinctive use of the Speed Force had taken over at the last instant. Then he spotted the kid stalking towards him, surprisingly at normal walking pace, and recognized the walk of a trained fighter. He'd met enough of them to know the danger signs. Max Mercury had a similar walk, but nothing like this, and why the hell was the kid naked?  
  
"Wally! What's going on?" Linda yelled.  
  
"I'll kill you." Ranma muttered over and over under his breath as he glared at the devil in front of him.  
  
"What the hell is he saying, I can't understand a word of it." Wally snapped as he motioned for his wife to get of the way while he took care of yet another enemy. He wasn't sure why, but he knew this wasn't a last minute attack by Cobra to take him down once and for all. This was something different, yet another riddle about the Speed Force that he would have to figure out eventually. Wally glared at the kid and literally growled at him for taking him away from Linda at a time like this.   
  
"This stops now." Wally's voice sounded like he barely suppressing his anger over this while situation and bolts of electricity began to form around him and his eyes lit up.   
  
They ran at each other at speeds even Johny Quick couldn't match, so at speeds like this, at less than five feet apart, they would have killed a normal person. Wally West was The fastest and exceedingly most irritated man alive and there was no way some punk like this would be able to beat him. He had years of experience under his belt fighting hundreds of different battles with his life on the line. Ranma Saotome on the other hand wasn't thinking straight and was just a little out of his mind at the moment. So when Wally suddenly vanished half an inch from dying at Ranma hands it came as quite a surprise, though not enough to fool his trained reflexes. Then came the pain from being hit over every inch of his body as The Flash went into action.   
  
Five seconds later Ranma collapsed to the ground unconscious as Wally cradled his sprained wrist where the kid had actually managed to block one of his attacks. He fell to his knees and just wondered what in the world would happen next. If it wasn't The Fiddler coming up with some other crackpot idea, it was some moron he'd never met before trying to streak his girlfriend right when they having a 'moment' together. Now how in the hell had this guy gotten a connection to the Speed Force in the first place?  
  
**********  
  
To Be Continued...  
  
End Notes - Review Reveiw Review! I want to know what you think, is it good, bad, so ugly that it needs to be dragged out to the local turn pike and shot repeatedly. Anything will do! 


	2. Chapter 01

**********  
  
Sudden Burst of Speed  
  
Chapter 01  
  
Cory D. Rose - ertle2@msn.com  
  
BlindmanX - blindmanx@hotmail.com  
  
(c) 2003  
  
**********  
  
Rain pounded down on Keystone city as the huge storm once again tried to cleanse the city of its modern day coating of pollution and filth. It was a valiant fight to be sure, but after years of being built up, the rain and wind just wasn't enough to make much of a difference. On this night, for the first time in close to over forty years a ghost was beginning stir and it had plans to set in motion. His form was hard to make, just a heavy trenchcoat and a wide brimmed hat to cover his head as he stalked down the street. He moved through the shadows along the dirty streets with practiced ease and let the rain wash away every sign that he had returned to the one place in his past that represented his greatest failure, but that was about to change.   
  
He knew that after all this time that to suddenly get revenge for what had happened to him was out of the question. Glancing up into the sky as lightning cascaded through the clouds and lit up a portion of the city with flickers of light he could have sworn he saw an almost invisible wave of energy radiating out from the clouds to greet his return. He was like a forsaken wraith with one last task to accomplish before he could finally rest. His life would not end with a failure committed over four decades ago and destroyed his life almost completely. No, he had changed over the years, learned how to do things properly and there was a chance that he could again find the kind of happiness that he'd once had back when he was a teacher.   
  
The rain was still coming down heavily when he turned to slowly walk up a driveway hidden among a grove of trees. This led to a large single story house built among the trees, it was a bit run down, but sound enough to work with his specialized needs. Bright light washes over him as he opens the front door and reveals for the first time just how old the man is and one has to be amazed how an eighty year old man could move as well as he did. He took his coat off and hung it on the coat tree just to the side of the door as a young teenaged girl walked into the room from the kitchen and glared at him. She was wearing a pair of cut off shorts, boots, a half shirt, gloves, and a pair of large glasses that accented her short and wild green hair.  
  
"Grandpa, you shouldn't be out in this weather." She chided him in a soft voice.  
  
"Humph, I needed to look around the area. It's been a long time since I left this city and needed to see how much things had changed." He said. "What the heck are you wearing?"  
  
"Like it?!"  
  
"You look ridiculous! Go put on a dress!"  
  
"Yuck! No way! I have to go out tonight you know and driving that thing in a dress would be impossible."  
  
The old man sighed and ran a hand through his white hair and adjusted his glasses. "Where did you get this odd sense of fashion? It's not like you ever went to school with other kids or anything like that."  
  
"Humph! I like the way this looks on me, it's just like what some of the kids wear in TV shows these days."  
  
"Bah! TV is a waste of time and if you didn't steal it on your own we never would have it in this house."  
  
She stuck her tongue out at him.  
  
"Now see here...?!"   
  
"Get with the times Grandpa, things do change you know."  
  
"Maybe for you, but I..." The old man started.  
  
"Have been living in the past for far too long." The girl stated and rolled her eyes.  
  
The old man glared at her. "Charlie, you will do as you're told."  
  
She blew a Raspberry at him and stalked out of the room.  
  
For the first time he noticed that she had a weapon hooked onto the backside of her shorts at the ready for easy access and use. At least she was following the normal rules he'd failed to drill into his son over the years, just look what had happened to that failure. Now if only she would show him a bit of respect, then maybe things would be good again and he could return to the good ol'days. He sighed as he placed his hat next to his coat and headed for the kitchen table and waited for his grand daughter to set out dinner. The girl was his greatest creation yet, but there were times when he wondered just what the hell she was thinking.   
  
In the last twenty-four hours over half the city had been leveled due to The Flash getting into yet another fight. Even worse was the fact that it wasn't the Flash that he had fought in his early days, but the third generation Flash. He was going to have to track down the location of the one he wanted, Jay Garrick the first Flash. The second generation flash was the only one known to have given his life to defend the Earth in a battle that had taken place some years before where even Superman and all the other powerhouses hadn't been able to stop some evil monster or something. The clink of dishes brought him back to reality as he saw his grand daughter setting the table.  
  
"So grandpa, what do you plan to do while we're back in Keystone?" Charlie asked as she served them a few pieces of chicken.  
  
"I need some supplies and this will be a good opportunity for you to test out some of the equipment I've been building for you."  
  
Charlie's eyes lit up. "You finally finished some of the things I asked for?"  
  
The old man nodded as he ate. "I should have everything ready here in a few days and you can go and get some of the other things we need."  
  
"What kind of equipment will I have to use?"  
  
"Nothing much at the moment, just the usual stuff until you can get your hands on the items I need to complete your gadgets."  
  
Charlie sighed and nodded.   
  
**********  
  
Wally glared down at the boy as he finished dressing him in a pair of shorts and tying some rope around him. He didn't remember much of anything from when he had been in the speed force, but he had the nagging feeling that he did something to the boy while he was there. Something in the back of his mind was nagging at him about an incident that had occurred a few weeks before. He wasn't sure what it was and Linda didn't recall him telling her anything either. Most of the images that flashed through his mind were of a sea of pure lightning rippling and cresting all around him as he ran, his mind and body filled with a longing to stay and be one with such a beautiful force of nature. As far as he could tell he'd never met the boy before, but that nagging feeling that he should know the kid wouldn't go away.  
  
Wally wasn't all that certain what to think about the boy tied to the chair in front of him. After knocking him out he had picked the kid up and taken him over to what was left of a nearby building and found a pair of shorts to dress him in and a place to lay him out on the ground while he slept.  
  
"So what do we do with him now?" Linda asks as she walks up.  
  
"I figure we can take him back to the house or wake him up and talk to him."  
  
"Sounds like a good plan." Max Mercury added as he ran up and noticed Ranma for the first time.  
  
"Where's Jay?" Wally asked as he turned to look over the aging speedster.  
  
"Right here." Jay Garrick said as he ran up from the opposite direction and looked around. "Who's the kid?"  
  
Wally sighed. "I don't know who he is. He appeared just after I pulled myself back from the brink for Linda and he decked me."  
  
"He seems familiar." Looking the kid over for a few seconds Max looked wondered out what he was thinking. "He looks like he's about sixteen or so, but I don't remember ever seeing him before."  
  
"I've never seen him before." Jay pointed out.   
  
"He was using the super speed to attack me Jay." Wally pointed out. "He used it like I've never even thought of before.  
  
"Really? We'll have figure out how he learned how to use it then. Even today with all of us running around there aren't really that many people that can tap into that kind of speed and we don't know everything that is possible."  
  
Max nodded absently. He had met more than one speedster over the years so he knew that it was possible for a normal human to learn by accident. "Let's get this kid back to Wally's house and let him sleep himself out and we can talk to him when he wakes up."  
  
"Do you have any idea what he just tried Max?" Muttered Wally.  
  
"Yeah, he got mad at you for some reason." Max grinned. "Seems to happen all the time for some reason, no matter who you are dealing with."  
  
"Hey!" Wally yelled and made Linda giggle.  
  
Jay just grinned.  
  
"I'll carry him, where do you want him in your house Wally?"  
  
Wally glared at the aging Speedster for a second before shaking his head. "I just got back from a near death experience. Me and Linda are going to spend some time together and that kid isn't going to be anywhere near for at least twenty four hours."  
  
Max blinked in surprise, unused to having his ideas overruled in such a blunt way.  
  
"We can take him to my place old friend." Jay Garrick said. "Joan won't mind and extra guest or two, it'll give her a chance to make dinner for more than just the two of us."  
  
Ranma groaned.  
  
"Looks like he's coming around."  
  
Jay nodded. "I've got an idea, let's go grab some pizza and let him wake up too. We can explain what we think might have happened."  
  
"Sounds good to me." Wally said as he picked Linda up and ran off in blur of speed. "I'll see you guys tomorrow!"  
  
"How can you just follow that guy around like this?" Max muttered. "He's so undisciplined."  
  
Jay just laughed. "He took over the mantel of The Flash and has earned it. At the moment he's just stressed out from his ordeal, let him calm down a bit. Things will be different tomorrow."  
  
"I hope so." Max said. "What are we going to do about getting him some clothing?"  
  
Rubbing his chin, Jay Garrick thought about it for a second. "Lets take him to my place first, let him sleep himself out and we can explain things to him in the morning."  
  
"I'll go and pick us up some Pizzas, give me half an hour or so and I'll meet you at your place."  
  
"Done, see you then." Jay said as Max vanished into the distance, then he looked down at the sleeping kid and prayed that he wasn't anything like Bart Allen. They did not need another Impulse to deal with.  
  
**********  
  
Wearing only her underwear, Charlie stood in front of her floor length mirror and held a skirt and shirt up to see what they would look like together. Her short spiky green hair made the combination look a little weird, but she had way to work around that. So for the last hour she found herself standing here looking for the perfect thing to wear for her upcoming mission. The only question that had to be answered was weather or not she needed to show more skin or less. She just couldn't decide which would work better to pull her mission off in quickest way possible.  
  
Hmm?  
  
"Charlie, hurry up, it's going to be midnight here pretty soon and you still haven't left!" Her grandpa yelled as he pounded on the door.  
  
"You know this would be a lot easier if you just gave me the Stuff." Charlie called back. "Instead I'm forced pick out the best way to catch the security guard off guard if I get caught."  
  
The old man snorted. "I've told you that I still haven't perfected that stuff and that the current version is too unstable for anyone to use."  
  
"Yeah right! You stingy old goat, you just want to keep it all for yourself because its worked like a fountain of youth."  
  
He glared at the door. "Get dressed and head out to get supplies so I finish building your toys."  
  
"Yeah. yeah!" Charlie said and stuck her tongue out at him again as she decided on the outfit she was designing to use when she was finally able to go out and attack a super hero. A black leather outfit hand made to fit her snuggly, tight leather pants, shiny black boots, and a short leather shirt that ended just below he breasts. This way her mid riff was visible enough to distract anyone attacking her. It was a version that showed off the smallest amount of skin and yet would allow her to pull her mission off.   
  
Then she walked over to her vanity and grabbed a blond wig off of a stand and fit it to her head. It was normally shoulder length, but since she used it in her various missions she had lengthened it with a couple of add ons that could be pulled out and hidden with little effort. Grinning at her self in the mirror she applied a bit of makeup and did a bit of stretching to make sure she could really move around in her outfit and nodded in satisfaction.   
  
The door slammed open and her grandpa stomped in with a scowl on his face. "It's about time! Come on, you have three places to go and only a few hours to do it."  
  
Charlie nodded as she grabbed up an altered bomber jacket that hugged he form, shortened a bit to make it fall to just below her ribs. There were a series of holsters built into the jacket and she spent a moment checking her equipment to make sure it was all there. It had been several weeks since she had a chance to wear her weapons for a mission and she didn't want to make a mistake with her grandpa looking on, after all he'd taught her everything she knew about breaking and entering. A lesson her father never had a chance to learn and look how much it had cost them in the long run?  
  
"Now remember what I told you. If The Flash or some other super hero shows up I want you to use that little surprise."  
  
"They don't even know we're in town grandpa."  
  
"Super hero's have this annoying tendency to show up when you least expect it."  
  
Charlie nodded again, that was what had happened to her father. "Don't worry, I know what to do."  
  
"Then get going."  
  
"Right!" She said with a mocking salute and marched out of the room looking kind of silly in a mini skirt as she tried to do a parade march.  
  
The old man sighed and wondered when she would grow out of her rebellious nature and into the mature woman he knew she could some day become. At the moment all he really wanted was for her to stop playing those silly games of hers and concentrate on the mission at hand, but she was too young to really understand things like that. He knew what it was like to have one's dreams shattered and would not put his grand daughter through the kind of pain he endured all those years ago. The time for him to make up for his sins was at hand and he would do everything in his power to make sure he did it right this time. Nothing would get in his way, not Jay Garrick, not Wally West, or anyone else that might come along. His eyes lit up with electricity and his form blurred for a second as lightning arched across his body and lit up the hallway around him.  
  
No one would stop him.  
  
**********  
  
The midnight hour was about fifteen minutes away when Charlie, on her bicycle, rode up beside a chain link fence and looked through it the huge parking lot on the other side. Beyond that was a large building that had Wesside Technologies all across the front of the structure in glowing neon green lettering. The place didn't look all that impressive to her, but she had to be careful because she knew this place was funded by Wayne Technologies and would have top of the line security available. Reaching into her jacket she pulled out a small list that detailed everything she would need to bring back to her grandfather. She was doing this one first because it would take the longest in her opinion. There were five items she needed to find hidden throughout the building.  
  
It would take most of the day under the best of conditions to find what she needed out of the huge place, even with its hidden underground labs and manufacturing plants. Unfortunately she only had two hours to get them and get out of the place before anyone got wise that she was there. Five years of training had gone made her into an accomplished thief so she wasn't worried, but this would be only her third official job and one of the biggest so far. She grinned in anticipation as she put the list back and peddled her bicycle over to the shadowed side of a tree and laid it in the tall grass where she hoped no one would notice it. Grabbing a pair of what looked like small swimming goggles, she activated the hidden on switch and let the low light technology warm up and turned the world a pale green, white, and gray. With this she didn't need to worry about carrying a flashlight to give her position away.  
  
She pulled a sophisticated looking watch out and strapped it to her left wrist and clicked a couple of buttons to activate the two hour countdown and set it to broadcast silent jamming signal that would keep things like motion, heat, and pressure sensors from detecting her presence if they sensed her. Where her grandpa had come up with the idea she didn't know, but it had to be making him millions. Using the tree for a brace she jumped six feet into the air and bounced off the trunk of the tree and calmly flipped over the electrified fence to land in a crouch among the shadows. The goggles scanned the area and didn't seem to be detecting anybody. There was nothing within range that might catch her. Just like her grandpa had figured.  
  
After the recent earthquakes the place had weakened security and it would make it easy to find what she was after. Sticking to the shadows she made her way around the parking lot and behind the building where a guard wasn't likely to be paying as much attention as they would the front. Her watch gave a quick buzz to let her know that a camera had just passed over her and been jammed for a brief second. She dashed to the edge of the building where there were a series of tinted windows and edged he way along. Using the goggles to see through into the offices and scan each room that she came across for a guard. There were supposed to be two of them walking around this huge place and she had no clue where they were.  
  
Then about halfway down the backside of the building she stumbled across something she hadn't expected. A door. A standing wide, propped open with a rock door that would allow her to get inside without any trouble. Was the security at this place this stupid or cunning enough to actually set a trap for anyone that might come along and just walk in? Then she spotted the first guard taking a leak in the bushes about forty yards from where she was kneeling in the shadows. "They're moronic idiots."   
  
Grinning at her good luck she breezed into the building tapped another button on her goggles to bring up the floor plans of this place with the probable locations of the items she needed to find. How her grandpa got the info, no amount of needling had gotten him to tell her, but if these guys were this stupid she might be out of her within the hour. Then her watch gave the little buzz again and spotted a motion sensor just down the corridor to the first room she needed to get to. Edging down the wall of the darkened hallway she pulled out a small can of spray paint, white to match the walls, and let the electronic jammer take care of the detector as she carefully painted the thing over in a thick coating of white paint. According to grandpa the paint was a special blend of chemicals that would cause the detector to burn out.   
  
The door was locked, but she didn't care as she pulled a small finger sized laser out of her coat and sliced the dead bolt in half to open the door. Inside were several racks of equipment and it took just a few seconds to find five boxes of computer chips and place them in a small carry sack that she strapped to her back. With that the first of two down she carefully moved out of the room and shut the door and used a special glue to shut it tight again. From the outside it would look like normal, but be nearly impossible to open now and keep anyone that tried busy for hours.   
  
She was just slipping down a long corridor when she heard the guard that had been outside come back in whistling to himself. Rent-a-cops had to be every thief's best friend; they were so inept at doing their jobs that she sometimes wondered if they were just criminals posing as guards to help get certain places robbed more efficiently. Shrugging, she stuck to the shadow as the guy walked the away from where she was standing so as not to set off the motion detector she'd trashed a few minutes before. Now she needed to get up the 'Clean Room' and remove some items from there. That big sign at the end of the corridor that pointed her in the right direction was so helpful.  
  
The Clean Room was designed to keep as many contaminants out of a room as physically possible, exchanging the air in the room once an hour with purified air and venting the bad through some scrubbers before exiting the building from the roof. Getting inside was as easy as pulling open a couple of doors and walking in. Normally a person would be wearing a clean suit that had been specially treated, but she planned on messing the place up anyway, so it was just a matter of walking in. There was a motion detector on the far side of the room and she quickly dispatched it with the paint before heading over to a small dais in the center of the room holding the second item she needed to get. The dais was about three feet high and had a thick plastic covering over the top of the dais.   
  
She was surprised when she found that no one had bothered to alarm the lid to the thing and rolled her eyes. These people needed to be fired for being to stupid, but it made her job a lot easier so who was she to complain? Lifting the lid proved to be a chore of several minutes and she was gasping for air by the time she had it open. Inside were a series of small containers that held the controlled chemicals that they needed inside the clean room along with that days production of a special chip. Quickly grabbing the small containers she put them in her leg pack and grabbed a tray with ten small computer chips on it and put them in her bag as well as a gift for her grandpa to sell.  
  
Then it was time to leave and she took the most direct rout through the back door and across the parking lot. Not once encountering any more sensors or guards along the way. The whole thing had taken her just over an hour and a half. She vaulted the fence with ease and landed next to her bicycle, put her goggles away and turned off the watch before she hopped on and headed down the road. After she transferred all her stolen goods into a larger bag hanging off her handle bars she pulled out a small cell phone and called her grandpa to let him know that the first one was out of the way. She had a feeling that the rest of the night was going to be interesting indeed.  
  
With a grin she made her way towards a small military controlled compound at the edge of the city for the second of her three stops. After that she would head towards the business district to a warehouse that was held the last item on her list and getting that bulky thing home was going to be a challenge. She was small and petite; it was the same size as her and weighed about three times as much as she did. If her grandpa hadn't given her bicycle an overhaul she would never have been able to pull it off, though it did mean she would have to take two of the things for balance, but that was just a bonus for her. And so she peddled off into the darkness with a grin on her face and larceny in the air.  
  
This was Keystone City, the home of The Flash and a few other super heroes and not once during the course of the whole trip did she even see a hint of the fast moving family. It confused the hell out of her and she hadn't gotten a chance to use her special weapon for when one of them would show up. After calling her grandpa and telling him what happened he had told her to come home with the parts right then and there, the rest could wait a day or two anyway. She had argued a little bit, but by the time she got home, gasping for air as she pulled out a remote and opened the garage, she had decided that he might have had the right idea after all. No need to take on more than she really could in one night. So as the garage opened up she rode her bicycle in and carefully placed it in the brace her grandpa had constructed to hold the bicycle. Her grandpa had been there to meet her and helped her unload all the things she'd gotten and complimented her on doing such a good job as he examined the chips with a grin on his old face. After that she staggered off to take a shower and catch a few hours sleep before the sun rose.   
  
**********  
  
Ranma's eyes snapped open and he had to resist the urge to jump to his feet and defend his life against an unknown foe as he did every time he woke up. Then he nervously sat up and shook off a slight dizzy spell as his eyes crossed. His head hurt quite a bit and no amount of rubbing would lesson the pain as it throbbed just behind his eyes. Tossing the bedding to the side he rolled to a sitting position and placed his feet on the floor and nearly fell over in pain. As far as he could remember he hadn't felt this bad in years. He spent a few minutes fighting off the need to throw up. Lifting his head up he slowly looked around and noticed the he was in a room he didn't recognize. For the first time he started to realize that something was seriously wrong.   
  
He didn't recognize the room at all. It wasn't even of Japanese design, but obviously American with its large bed, thick mattress, and a small table with a mirror attached to the wall. Where the hell was he? He gritted his teeth and staggered over to the bathroom to use the sink and splashed some water on his face. There was a quick knock at the door and Ranma only had time to peak his head out of the bathroom before an old woman with white hair stepped into the room. She was holding a bundle of clothing in her arm. She stopped in surprise when she noticed that the bed was empty and turned to look at him as he stepped out of the bathroom.  
  
"Good morning!"  
  
"Ah, good morning." Ranma said. He wasn't sure who she was, but had a vague feeling that his father had sold him again.  
  
"How are you feeling?"   
  
"Huge headache. Where am I?"  
  
"You're in Keystone City. My husband brought you here last night when you had passed out."  
  
Ranma sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed his forehead again. "Keystone City? Should be Japan, if ...remember right."  
  
"Japan? No, you are in America right now."  
  
"That explain little bit. Don't remember much."  
  
"What's your name and are you hungry?"   
  
"My name is Ranma...something." Ranma said and suddenly realized that there were great big holes in his memory.   
  
"Hmm..."  
  
"Can't remember full name, seem to be blank spots..." He sighed and slumped over. "No need this now."  
  
"Cheer up! Lets get you dressed and some breakfast in you, there are a few people downstairs that want to meet you."  
  
Ranma glanced up at her and looked confused and thought to himself. 'Did the old man really sell him again?'  
  
"You may not remember it, but you did something yesterday that was quite surprising and some friends wanted to explain what happened to you. They spent most of the night tracking down some answers to figure it out."  
  
"What will wear, shorts don't fit well and seems that clothes missing." Ranma complained as he stood up again, this time it was little easier than the last time.  
  
"Here you go." She said as she handed him the bundle of clothes.  
  
There seemed to be a pair of blue jeans, socks, a weird looking pair of red shoes with thick soles, and a gray t-shirt. "What with shoes?"  
  
"Oh! I forgot you don't know about them, they are specially made for people with abilities like yours." Joan said with a grin and refused to say any more.  
  
"Huh...?" Ranma just shrugged and started getting dressed. He was kind of used to working through things without much information. How he knew this was a complete mystery just that it had something to do with a demon that'd spent some time hurting him in some way he couldn't recall.  
  
Then a voice called from outside the room. "Joan!?"  
  
The old woman turned and yelled back out the door. "He's up, just getting dressed. He'll be down in a few minutes!"  
  
"Alright, make sure he's fully dressed so we can leave!" Yelled the mysterious voice.  
  
From the tone Ranma could tell that it was from an old man as well. After taking a few minutes to pull the clothes on the last and final thing he picked up were the oddly shaped shoes. He was quite surprised at how snug and comfortable they were as he stood up to test the fit, as if they had been formed to fit his feet exactly. Then his stomach decided to growl loud enough to grab the old woman's attention and she smiled at him as he blushed. "Um..."  
  
"Just follow me Ramna, you must be hungry enough to eat a horse."  
  
"Ranma." He corrected, then his stomach growled again. "Eh...heheheh." He laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head and followed her out of the room.  
  
**********  
  
Wally didn't remember much of any thing about his time within the Speed Force as Max Mercury liked to call it, it had all just kind of faded when he came back out for Linda, but he had the nagging feeling that he did something to the boy. No matter how much he thought about it he just seemed to know the kid from somewhere and it was driving him crazy trying to figure out from when. Most of the images he had for his little run beyond the veil, if he could call it that, was… lightning and the face of that boy being pulled behind him as he left. Then nothing more, but those two images seemed to be permanently etched into his mind. Wally wasn't certain where he came from either, but after seeing the fear, anger and loneliness in the boy's eyes during their confrontation. He had to know their connection.  
  
All these thoughts were flying around his brain as he sat at his kitchen table finishing off his fifth plate of bacon and eggs. Linda was just doing the dishes and watching him as he ate, but she had been like this since he returned and he didn't mind. She had a good reason to be a little hesitant about him leaving, but kept it to herself. He was going to meet Jay Garrick and the others at a local diner that had survived the battle. Jay was going to bring the boy along so that all of them, including Max Mercury could sit down and have a little chat about recent events. He stood up and helped Linda do the dishes in about two point five seconds, kissed her good by as he grabbed up his coat and was halfway to the diner a fifth of a second after that.  
  
The diner still stood even after all the damage those Kobra terrorists had caused this part of the city. There were some cracks in the walls and looked as if the sidewalk was a total write off, but so was half the city at the moment. It was a tiny place and had a relatively small amount of room to maneuver around in, but he only had to worry about that if the kid decided to attack them again. They had also chosen it because of the fact that it was still standing in one piece after what had happened to rest of the city. He wanted to get there somewhat early so that he could reserve a table for four in the back corner. Where they could have some relative privacy and a chance to talk to each other without everyone in the diner knowing what was going on. Not that he was really worried about that, but he just figured that meeting in a public place would be a better idea in the long run. He cruised through traffic in a blur of motion and came to a halt near the front door of the place as he looked in the window.   
  
Then he spotted Jay Garrick and Max Mercury sitting in a booth in back corner chatting with each other. They seemed to be getting along fine and there was no sign that they were nervous or anything. Sitting next to them was the boy that had attacked him eating enough food for several people at once. He walked over and pulled up a chair between Max and Jay and continued to watch as the kid ate. It was quite apparent that the kid was either a very fast eater or unconsciously channeling the speed to move faster. Wally was pretty sure it was the second option because he'd never seen a normal human eat like this kid.  
  
Then he noticed that the boy was dressed this time. In a pair of loose blue jeans, a shirt, jacket, and a pair of the special shoes they wore when they were running. To keep the friction from burning a normal pair to ashes within a few hours. "Hey Jay, Max."  
  
"Wally, get things patched up with Linda?"  
  
"A little, though we still need to talk about a few things. She's still trying to deal with the fact that I almost died yesterday." Wally explained.  
  
"Joan used to have that problem."  
  
"How did she deal with it?" Wally asked. "Maybe she could talk to Linda."  
  
"I'll ask, but I think it's something you have to come to terms with on your own." Jay explained.  
  
"How about you Max?" Wally asked as he turned to other speedster.  
  
"Never had a girlfriend last long enough to find out." Max explained, his face turning to stone as he turned away.  
  
"Ah, okay." Wally muttered and tried to figure out what he'd done to make the guy mad. They really didn't know each other that well really. "Hey kid that's quite a talent you have there." Wally said to the kid that had attacked him.  
  
Ranma ignored him and finished off yet another plate of pancakes and sat it with growing pile beside him and reached for more.  
  
"Right."  
  
With a grin Jay took a bit of pity on Wally. "The kid's name is Ranma."  
  
"He's from Japan right?"  
  
"We think so, his English as good as it can be. But we had an early morning run this morning and he can tap into his speed easily. He's seems to be a natural at using the stuff either from is emersion in the speed field or just physical ability. We haven't been able to figure out which one it could be yet."  
  
Max Mercury stayed quiet as he watched the kid eat. He was quite shocked at the kid's total lack of even the most rudimentary table manors though. Then the kid belched and reached for more and he had to shake his head. He had to fight to keep a grin off his face as he watched yet another stack of pancakes vanish in a matter of seconds. Max tried to figure out where it was all going or if the kid was going to explode. Then he suddenly realized that Ranma was almost instantly converting the food into energy. His time within the speed force must have sped things up quite a bit and given him some special abilities.   
  
Maybe along the same lines as the fact that Wally didn't need to eat every ten minutes like he used to. By mainlining the Speed Force he seemed to have an inexhaustible amount available to use whenever he wanted to and didn't need to worry about keeping his body in top shape anymore. There was a possibility that Ranma might have similar abilities or had to keep up with Wally in certain areas for them to work.  
  
Then he noticed as the boy finally stopped eating and looked up from his plate. This allowed Wally to get the first decent look at his face since he had arrived at the diner. He really was Japanese, with gray blue eyes, and looked to be around Bart's age or a bit younger. It was a bit hard to tell. When dealing with the Speed Force it was hard to judge a person's age at times. Impulse was a living example of that, the kid was barely a few years old, but the speed force had aged him into a teenager's body in just a few short years. The boy's eyes locked him in and Wally got a brief glimpse into a world of pain, loss, and depression before a will of iron clamped down on them and everything about him returned to normal.  
  
Wally broke away and turned towards Jay who had managed to get his hands on some coffee while he was thinking about Ranma. "Well now son, are you full yet or do you need even more food?" Jay asked. "If you keep this up you might just eat everything they have available on your own."  
  
"Yeah, this enough for now." Ranma said. His English was a bit rough, but he'd learned enough to understand people. He couldn't read a word of it, but he could speak it relatively well and it had come in handy a time or two.  
  
"Wait a second, he can speak English?" Wally asked with an incredulous look on his face. Last night all he could remember was the boy trying to rip his head off, all the while shouting in some foreign language that he suspected was Japanese. But he wasn't certain what the boy was saying at the time, it all happened so fast. Add in the fact that Wally just hadn't been in the mood to put up with any crap at that particular moment and you were a little closer to understanding things.  
  
"Yea… me… can…you… BAKA!" Ranma yelled.  
  
The rest was lost on Wally as the boy grumbled to himself for several seconds before shrugging and hunching down in his seat. Wally was just happy that a fight hadn't broken out the moment he walked in the dinner, putting up with insults would be easy enough to do. But Mister Zen the walking encyclopedia for the speed force, as he liked to call it, decided to explain what he knew of the boy to Wally. Not that Wally wasn't curious, it was just that Max Mercury tended to get on his nerves at times with his secretive ways and need to know information dolled out in tiny little bits of wisdom that were never explained.  
  
"Last night I finally remembered why this kid was so familiar to me." Max said.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"A few weeks ago, I was trying to stop someone who had just gotten access to the Speed Force through an unknown means. I chased after him and attempted to stop him from crossing the light speed barrier and entering the Speed Force. But I noticed him just a few seconds to late and just couldn't get close enough to him in order to catch him." Max explained before he looked back at Wally. "You remember when I told you I had failed to save someone? I think this kid might be the one that crossed the barrier, while there he somehow kept himself from surrendering to the Lightning completely and you accidentally pulled him along with you when you left the Speed Force to reunite with Linda Parks."  
  
"Ah..." Wally said as he edged away from the glare Ranma was suddenly giving him.  
  
Max waved a hand toward Wally and with a smooth motion he introduced them. "Ranma I'd like you to meet the Flash, Flash this is Ranma. He's planning to kick your butt for what you did to him… how did he put it a little while ago… ah yeah. Because of that jerk, I've returned to hell." Max was trying to keep from smirking and failing slightly. The look on Wally's face was almost worth putting on this show.  
  
"I know English, so, I understand what you saying to jerk here." Ranma said with a shrug and stopped glaring at Wally. He'd been listening to the people around him talk to each other and already started to adapt his speech to talk like they did. He figured, if he had few weeks, he could pick the language up if he needed to. "I'll kick ass later."  
  
"Your English is good enough and you'll get better with practice if you stick around long enough." Max said to distract him from beating up Wally.  
  
"We still need to figure out just how he became trapped in the Speed Force." Wally pointed out with a glance at Max.  
  
"There have been Speedsters throughout history Wally. I told you my story and that I certainly wasn't the first one to ever get the power." Max explained as he ate a little of his own breakfast.  
  
"Just how did you end up stuck inside the Speed Force Ranma? As we understand it just getting there requires traveling beyond the speed of light and turning to pure energy."  
  
Ranma had to sift through some rather spotty memories before he remembered. "It martial arts technique."  
  
"Martial Arts?" Max asked in surprise.  
  
Nodding, Ranma described the process about focusing his Ki and running through the thunderstorm. "Memory is a bit spotty after that until I wake up in pain."  
  
"How much lightning was there Ranma?" Max asked.  
  
"Lots."  
  
"What are you thinking Max?" Jay asked from the other side of the table.  
  
"Just an idea that I've been thinking about for a long time now." Max muttered and waved off any other questions. "Just how much control do you have over your speed Ranma?"  
  
"Just learned technique when end up in heaven." Ranma muttered with another glare at Wally.  
  
"So not much. I'm still impressed that you could even move as fast as you did that day."  
  
Ranma smirked. "Am Best!"  
  
Jay laughed, that confidence reminded him of a young Barry Allen after he first got his powers in that chemical accident. "We need to teach him how to control his powers before he does something that might hurt someone. He has some skill though, he picked up running the first time we tried it this morning."  
  
Max and Wally both nodded.   
  
"More techniques?" Ranma asked, though he did ignore Wally as he glanced at Max and Jay for them to confirm it.  
  
"Correct." Max said. "I think I might have the best way to do it too."  
  
"What do you have in mind Max?" Wally asked. He was somewhat relieved actually. With Bart Allen running around he wasn't sure he could take on yet another teenage speedster.  
  
"Let's have Bart show him a few things." Max suggested and Wally started coughing, completely surprised.  
  
"Who?" Ranma asked.  
  
"You might remember him from last night Ranma, the teenager wearing the red and white body suit." Jay explained.  
  
"I don't remember much last night." Ranma said slowly as he worked his way through the rudimentary English.  
  
"Um, Max, do you think that is such a good idea." Wally asked a bit nervously. Batman hadn't come up with the name Impulse for Bart Allen's super hero name for the fun of it, more like a warning of what was to come.  
  
"The kid has a lot of potential Wally and even if Bart is impulsive he's got a lot of things he could show Ranma."  
  
"I don't know..."  
  
"I think it might be a good idea as well." Jay said.  
  
"Oh you have got to be kidding me." Wally snapped as he stood up. There was no way the kid could learn anything from Impulse. On top of that the kid seemed to instantly dislike him and he didn't feel like playing peace keeper just to get on his good side. He turned around and walked out of the diner, only to run into Jay just outside the door. "I'll let you two deal with this, I need to go and take care of something and there is a bit of rebuilding to do."   
  
"Wally..." Jay started; he was a bit worried about his friend. Ranma was adapting to the situation better than he expected, but there did seem to be a few problems that had to be dealt with. Like the fact that he seemed to have memory problems of some sort because of the time he's spent inside the Speed Force. Things like his family name were already gone and his memories of certain people seemed to be missing as well.   
  
"I can't deal with this right now. Having Impulse train him is like asking a stick of dynamite play with matches." Wally snapped as he dug his hand into his pocket and handed something to Jay. "If he proves to be an asset or an ally then give him this, but for now leave me out of it."  
  
Looking at the object in his hand, Jay was mildly surprised to see that it was a Flash Ring like all of them wore. It stored their costume for when it was needed in an emergency and allowed them to pop it out and use their speed to get dressed before anyone was aware that anything had happened. It was a strange looking one though, made of silver with a flash signet done on a black background with a silver lightning bolt instead of the usual red. "I don't think I've ever seen this one before."  
  
"It's a costume I designed some time ago. Back before we lost Barry." Wally explained.  
  
"So what does it look like?"  
  
"It's a basic costume. Though I was in a dark mood the day I created it and never had a chance to wear it. It's got a different color scheme than what we usually wear, I had a feeling that it might be needed so I brought it along just in case. I'm willing to give him a chance since you two want to train him, but for now leave me out of it."  
  
"Alright." Jay nodded and pocketed the ring.  
  
Back in the diner Ranma watched Wally and Jay talk to each other through the window they were standing in front of and wondered what they were talking about and if should be worried about it. He was still a bit uncertain on how to react to this man who he knew as The Flash. A part of him wanted to hit him till the feeling of loss when a way and he could go back to normal again. On the other hand he was still a bit pissed at what had happened to him because he wanted to learn a new technique. It had led to him literally running so fast that he died and ended up in some kind of heaven. Only to be pulled out a little while later and brought back here to experience things all over again.   
  
To be back in the real world after all this time was hard to adjust to and after being ripped from his home it just wasn't right. No matter how he looked at it he just couldn't seem to get his mind around the concept enough to accept it and move on. Didn't he deserve to be happy? Hadn't he earned it after all the crap he'd been through over the years? Even with his spotty memory he could remember lots and lots of pain and suffering, all of which had been alleviated when he ended up inside the Speed Force. Then he'd been brought back into the living world and forced to endure more pain and suffering.  
  
  
  
He was constantly frustrated now and hadn't had a chance to work out his stress. The only thing that seemed to make up for all the aggravation was the fact that he had been given a second chance. Earlier when he had come downstairs with Joan he had been greeted by Jay Garrick. The old man had been wearing his usual outfit, a pair of jeans, a red shirt, and his trademark helmet of mercury with its wings. He stopped to stare at the guy and wondered what it was with Americans and this strange need to wear weird clothes everywhere they went.   
  
"Morning kid." Jay said.  
  
"Hello." Ranma said nervously and looked around the room. He noticed that the downstairs area was wide open. On one side was the dining room, next to that was a large living room and this small area at the bottom of the stairs right in the middle of the two.  
  
"We are meeting a couple friends of mine at a local diner and they want to meet you." Jay said. "I need to show you a couple of things before we go though."  
  
"Huh?" Ranma muttered as they stepped outside.   
  
"By the way, what is your name?"  
  
"Ranma."  
  
"It's nice to meet you Ranma, I'm Jay Garrick. The Original Flash." He said.  
  
Ranma gave him a blank look. "Who?"  
  
"You've never heard of me?"  
  
"Nope." Shrugging he looked around the yard and saw that it was well kept. Then he noticed the old woman stepping outside and walking over to the guy.  
  
"How rare." She said.  
  
"Yeah, I've gotten used to people knowing who I am at least." Jay grumbled.  
  
Joan laughed.  
  
"Hey kid, let me show you something." Jay said to get Ranma's attention again. Then he ran across the yard and left a stream of color behind him.  
  
Amazed Ranma watched as he did this several times, going to all corners of the yard and even circling him a couple of times. He realized that the old guy was using the same technique he'd just learned before he 'died'. "You know same technique?"  
  
"Yes, I've been using it for years and I can go much, much faster than that. I want to see what you can do."  
  
With a shrug Ranma figured it wouldn't hurt and took up the stance he'd started with and started to concentrate. He flared his aura around him and reached out to the energy that was always just out of reach and let it fill him. As lightning started to flare around him he didn't see the odd look that Joan and Jay gave him or the shocked look as he exploded into motion. Like Jay he ran to each corner of the yard, circled them a few times and then decided to go around the block.   
  
He glanced over as he ran and saw that Jay was keeping up with him and increased his speed a little. "How this?"  
  
"Kinda slow." Jay said and seemed to just pull away form him. "Keep up with me, we can go and meet my friends."  
  
"You can't beat me old man!" Ranma yelled and concentrated even more, barely able to keep the guy in sight.   
  
"Hah!"  
  
Ranma sat back in his chair and shook his head a little. He still wasn't to sure about what was going on, but he knew he could learn things from these people that he couldn't learn from anyone else. Even the run here this morning, close to fifteen miles from Jay's house had taken only a few minutes and he had been forced to increase his speed to amazing levels. Dodging traffic that looked like it was standing still, reading the wind currents, and how to use air pressure to slow down. Jay had decade's worth of experience and Ranma wanted to know every bit of it.   
  
When they arrived at the diner he had met Max Mercury and found yet another speedster that could teach him things. The run had one side effect that he hadn't expected though. It had pushed him to his limits and used up all his energy and made him hungry as hell. He'd also noticed that the two old men had this aura of power about them that they seemed unaware of. It reminded him of a storm that swirled around them as if it was on the verge of turning into a hurricane of rage. He wasn't sure, but he was assuming that is what a speedster's aura was supposed to look like and his wasn't even close.  
  
It would take a bit of work, but he was sure he could learn to go from a stand still to moving at full speed like they did. He glanced up as Jay came back into the diner and walked over to their table and sat down again. "What going on?"  
  
"Wally had something to take care of." Jay said. "What can you tell us about yourself Ranma? Do you remember anything that might help us figure out where your parents are for instance."  
  
A flash of memory hit Ranma like a sledge hammer and he nearly fell out of his chair as he envisioned a monster standing above him, cloaked in shadows, and with a pair of evil looking eyes shining brightly. It was laughing at him as it kicked him over and over again for some reason. He shuddered and noticed that Jay was standing behind him with a hand on his shoulder to keep him from falling to the floor. "Ow…"   
  
"Ranma, what happened? Are you alright?" Max asked.  
  
"Yeah, just remembered being kicked unconscious by someone." Ranma muttered as he sat up and shivered a bit. "I'm fine."  
  
Glancing over at Max, Jay and him seemed to come to a decision and nodded. "Ranma, you can mope around all you want later, but for right now we have to help rebuild the city if you're up to it. And I think it would do some good for you to help out the people. I will also allow you to get your mind off your lack of certain memories. So let's start teaching you how to use your new abilities." Jay said, trying to keep Ranma from thinking about what he had just remembered.   
  
"Indeed, let's head out back and see what Ranma can and can not do with the Speed Force." Max suggested with a look of anticipation.  
  
"Ranma, you will be amazed at how much you can do in one day with the speed to help you out." Jay nodded in agreement. "I have a few things in mind to help you get started, though we won't push you to hard."  
  
"Push as hard as you want." Ranma said. "I can take on any kind of training and come out on top."  
  
"Well in that case." Max said with a grin. "I have an idea."  
  
*************  
  
Sitting in the middle of the garage was a masterpiece of engineering as far as Charlie was concerned. A little while ago her Grandpa had decided that going to all three of the places she needed to in one night was pushing things a little. They would have a few more days to break into the other two places with most of the town still trying to recover from the destruction of a third of the city. He had been delighted with the computer chips she had brought back with her, saying that she might have sped up his time table a bit. It turned out they did something very interesting when installed in a motorized vehicle and he wanted to take a little time to look them over before sending her out again.   
  
In the mean time he had spent the last six hours working on the piece of engineering sitting in front of her. Her Ride, the one thing she had been looking forward to for the last year and a half. A vehicle so hard to describe that it was simply called a Hover bicycle, though that barely came close to describing what it really was. Her Grandpa had been building and designing the technology used in it for years. Now all that work was sitting in front of her within hours of being completed. She had to resist stepping forward and running her hand over it just to see what it was like.  
  
The best way to even describe it was as a sleek shark moving in for the kill. For it was a sight to behold no matter how she looked at it. A streamlined predator of the sky, made with the most modern equipment available to criminal science. It almost seemed to be begging her to ride it as she stood there. Besides it was sexy as hell and there was no way she would give that up after waiting over all this time for it to be built. She walked around the bicycle and saw that it rested on three curved metal fins instead of the wheels she had been expecting. Two of the fins were jutting out from its rear at an angle to help balance the craft downward and came to a couple dangerous looking points. Then the fin on the front was a retractable short studded point that would help the bicycle stand up on its own when she finally came down.   
  
It was more like a rocket with sharp angles to accentuate everything about it. Something built for speed, power, and danger. The seat was near the rear of the bicycle and was sculpted for her contours so when she got on the thing it she would be like a high speed racer. The most important feature of the bicycle was its weapons system. Which was designed to fight Meta powered humans like The Flash. It was one of the things she had been stealing the parts for. One of the things that seemed to stand out on the bicycle was the control panel that looked like it had been taken off of a Goldwing Motorcycle and adapted. There were small screens, dozens of buttons, and lots and lots of her grandfather's specially designed equipment. Everything on the bicycle worked perfectly now that some of the final pieces had been put in place with a bit of reprogramming.   
  
As she walked around the back of the thing she sighed as her grandpa looked up from where he was kneeling. Beside one of the side hatches with a whole mess of wires strung out all over the floor as he installed an updated gyro stabilizer. She shrugged and ignored him as she admired the streamlined edges and graceful look of the machine and couldn't wait to take out and give it a shake down flight. Then she spotted another change to the bicycle as she knelt down across from her grandpa and examined a mini gun turret of some kind that she hadn't noticed before. It was jutting out from the belly of the thing gleaming in the light. She grinned as she examined it. The two of them had been planning for years and she knew that this upcoming theft wouldn't be one of those random attacks that the Rogues Gallery villains that used to attack the city every few weeks. No, she was an all new threat and she would do everything in her power to make sure that no one got in her way.   
  
"How much longer grandpa?"  
  
"About six hours or so to get it ready to fly, except for the weapons system of course. The main part I need get the whole thing working wasn't at the place you went to last night. It's at the military base you are heading to next and you'll need the hover bicycle here to get in and out safely. A bit of a problem, but I have some other weapons that I've set up for you to use. When you get back from the base the bicycle will be upgraded to its full potential."  
  
"Ah, I was wondering what you had in mind when you mentioned it earlier." She said.  
  
"I had to revise my original plan when I realized that sneaking in was impossible now that the earthquake has put everyone on edge. I thought they would be busy helping around the city, but there will be a small group of soldiers at the base and they will be on guard in case something happens. Getting in and out will be tricky."  
  
Charlie nodded. "I'm up for it."  
  
"Excellent, I was also able to get your guns ready so you can be armed when you get off the bicycle at least."  
  
"Cool! Which ones?"  
  
He pointed over towards the bench on the other side of the room and she spotted a pair of larger than normal handguns. They are sitting on a small foam pad as a small computer runs a check on them from a cord plugged into their pistol grips. She ran over and picked one up carefully and was amazed at how lightweight the thing is. It's shaped basically like a berretta, but with a longer nose and has a slot in the handle that can hold the battery for it. With the flip of a switch she was able to see that it had a full charge and could fire about two hundred shots before it ran out on low power. The only problem she saw with them was that they were more of a taser gun than anything dangerous, but was enough to drop someone that wasn't expecting them. Then she noticed that there was indeed some dangerous setting on there that could reduce its shots down to around 6. Or even a single shot that could blow a hole through a building, but they were very dangerous. "These look great, but why did you make them matte black?"  
  
"You need that weapon to be a surprise and they can be hidden on the hover bicycle here or under your jacket with a bit of adjustment to the holster. When we have all the parts I need I have another set of guns that will be your main ones and they will be a lot more powerful than those things. It's just bad luck that the parts I need are only allowed to the military."  
  
Nodding, Charlie turned the gun off and placed it back on the pad. "What is the computer doing to them?"  
  
"The notepad is programming the triggering mechanism to respond faster and to adding a set of commands that will allow it to function with your goggles. Oh, I also want you to go and check out your next target today, before you head out tonight that way you won't get lost."  
  
"How will I be doing that?"  
  
"The base took quite a beating in the earthquake and they are rebuilding, I was thinking you could volunteer for the day and get a look around the place at the same time."  
  
"W-work! Oh come on!" Charlie yelled. She had more important things to do.  
  
The old man stood up and glared down at her with lightning arching from his eyes and around his body. It made him look absolutely evil. "Charlie."  
  
"Yes sir." She squeaked and nodded hurriedly.  
  
"If you want your hover bicycle finished, then you need to do this."  
  
Charlie cringed as she nodded some more and slowly backed her way out of the garage, nearly tripping over the back fin of her bicycle as she did so. The old man just kept a frown on his face as he watched her disappear into the house. He didn't like having to scare her, but this project needed to be finished as soon as possible if he was to set the next step in his plan in motion. He had hinged so much of his revenge on his son and had to sit back and watch as the fool destroyed everything that had been set in motion all those years ago. There was no way he would fail this time; he had raised his grand daughter to obey him like his son should have. She would succeed where her father had failed and paid the ultimate price. Maybe it was also time for him to give her that other thing as well. He checked the date on the calendar and nodded to himself.   
  
It was time.  
  
**********  
  
The last couple of hours had been quite interesting as far as Ranma was concerned. He hadn't really remembered anything of his past, but he had found out a few things. The biggest was that he seemed to have a talent for picking up new ideas. Max had taken him around the city a couple of times, making him reach faster and faster speeds by using what he called the Speed Force. Hours of work and practice could be done in a matter of seconds according to Max and one of the first things that had to be learned was how to manage this ability. A normal human could build a wall in a few hours at normal speed, but with the speed force Max said had shown him that kind of job could be done in a matter of seconds.   
  
Speeding across the city from one end to the other, Ranma had studied how Max worked and followed his instructions. Building the entire wall at once using the was impossible because the mortar didn't have time to set, but if took it on small levels and allowed each one to set and dry he could finish ten to twenty walls in just a few hours. Taking materials from all the downed and collapsed buildings and rebuilding walls and fences faster than the most of the normal work crews could think. In real time it took them about two hours, but Max believed that they had accomplished about two months worth of work after they had finished the final wall. After that Max had had them taking bags of cement to the work crews throughout the city. According to Max this would help to build up his speed and control as he adjusted to the speed force. Ranma had to admit that after a few hours of this, charged with the speed force, that he was moving faster than ever.  
  
They did have to take the occasional break though because Ranma kept getting hungry and stealing peoples lunches. Ranma hadn't thought much of it at the time and asked Max why he was so hungry, without admitting that he had stolen it from the construction crews of course.   
  
"Ranma, as you move at these high speeds your body burns a hundred thousand calories during these runs. You need to keep up your strength to use the speed force and that means a healthy appetite."  
  
"I guess a flaw in new technique." Ranma said with a shrug.  
  
"Jay and I also have to eat quite a bit to continue what we are doing, you'll get used to it in time and you are making good progress learning all this stuff."  
  
"Heh."   
  
"It's all quite simple really, but there are limits to what you can do with super speed as well. You can move so fast that it's possible to do several things at once, but every now and then that kind of habit will cause you problems. Making you forget things and getting impatient when you are used to doing things almost instantly."  
  
Ranma nodded, though he had no idea what the guy was talking about.  
  
"Now our next job is a bit different, we need to help repair some of the buildings." Max said as they came to a stop in front of a slightly damaged office building.  
  
"What going do exactly? Can fix holes easily, unless want done certain way." Ranma said.  
  
Wincing, Max decided that he would have to do something about the kids horrible English. "We aren't fixing holes, but playing clean up crew instead. We need to clean up all the fallen and broken bits and pile them at a rock quarry just outside of town. This will take several hours of real time running at your current speed, but I think if you learn to move faster you will get done a lot sooner than you think."   
  
"No problem." Ranma said, showing off his new slang.   
  
"He'ssoslow!" Impulse yelled as he suddenly appeared beside Max. "Gofasterwegottagetallthissoneandhe'sjuststanding around!"  
  
"Impulse, he needs to learn all the basics before he can on to the advanced stuff." Max said.  
  
"Whocaresjustmakehimgofaster!"  
  
Ranma had a feeling that while Impulse was here complaining that he was also doing about five or six other things at the same time. He glared as the ghost image of Impulse seemed to just fade away. Again he noticed the strange way that everyone's aura seemed to react when they tapped into their speed. "Is possible doing this wrong?"  
  
"Not at all Ranma, it just takes time to learn this sometimes. I think by the tomorrow you will be well versed in using your speed and we can move onto something else." Max said. "There are several advanced moves that we use to fight people and escape dangerous situations that you need to know. At the moment you are working on just tapping the speed force and using it to move around. You are also learning how to move objects with you at super speed without breaking them."  
  
Then Ranma's stomach growled loudly. "Hungry."  
  
Max grinned. The kid was beginning to remind him of another speedster he knew a while back. "Then let's go and eat. We'll do it at normal speed that way you don't burn it off right away."  
  
"No care lets just eat lots." Ranma muttered.   
  
Later on that after going back to the diner and eating enough food for ten people Ranma spent an hour moving from building to building cleaning out rubble. It was boring work, but he had a blast just moving so fast that he could create images of himself hanging in mid air. At the quarry the rubble started to pile up quite a bit and he had to build several piles just to hold it all, but one of the foremen thanked him for clearing the buildings out and saving his crew a lot of time and allowing them to get right to work.  
  
Ranma also noticed that as the day went on he was starting to see glimpses of The Flash moving all over the city in a red blur of motion. He had not clue how fast the guy was going, but he was leaving an incredible amount of completed work in his wake that astounded him. It wasn't even noon yet and Ranma was pretty sure that between The Flash, Max, and Jay Garrick that over a third of the city had been rebuilt or cleaned up enough for the normal construction crews to move in a do the complicated bits. There was another aspect that Ranma found a bit puzzling as well, but one that he wasn't all that surprised about.  
  
To the residents of the city these actions were what they expected from The Flash and his friends whenever a crisis of this magnitude happened. They didn't really blame it on him like they used to, according to Jay, and instead were welcomed with cheers every time one of them made an appearance. They hadn't really said anything about Ranma yet, but they were starting to notice him every time he completed a job and vanished before anyone could talk to him. He hadn't really noticed because he was so intent on finishing the job a learning more of his new technique that it never crossed his mind to stick around after he got done. Though he did get caught once when he was feeling really hungry at one point and taking a break.  
  
"Hi." Said a voice.  
  
He looked over and saw that there was a girl looking at him. "Hello?" He said, unsure if he was using the right word.  
  
"I'm Susan and I think you look tired." She said with a grin and handed him a cup of some red liquid.  
  
He just nodded, unsure what to say as he took the cup.  
  
"I'm helping out and saw that you were about to collapse over here and figured I'd help out a little."   
  
"Just hungry." Ranma explained.   
  
"I've seen you running around with The Flash right?" She asked a gleam in her eye.  
  
Taking the question literally he shook his head. "Nope, Max Mercury."  
  
She gave him a blank look. "Who?"  
  
"Max Mercury, teaching...um, me about Speed Force."   
  
"Not The Flash?"  
  
"No, Max Mercury show lots techniques." He said with a grin that she seemed to take in completely the wrong way.  
  
"Pervert!" She yelled, slapped him, and stalked off after pouring the drink over his head.  
  
"What say?" He muttered to himself as he shook the stuff out of his head.  
  
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Impulse's image, rolling around in the ground laughing at him, faded away a few seconds later.  
  
Grumbling, Ranma concentrated and dashed off down the road and decided to go to his next project now that Max trusted him enough to work on his own. A few milliseconds later he entered the military base and headed for the small housing area on the other side of the large field where he'd already dropped off at least ten other bags of concrete earlier in the day, helped clear some rubble, and painted over twenty houses. It had been a busy few minutes as far as he was concerned, but it had helped make him understand that a lot could be accomplished in a few minutes.   
  
The military base had seen a lot of him today. He had passed through the place close to a hundred times or more doing his various jobs, like rebuilding walls, cleaning out rubble, and helping with small things like painting houses. So he cruised though the base and took a few milliseconds to check out some of the tanks set up out in the field, the Hummers, and lots of other equipment he couldn't even identify. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a blue and white blur passing by the base and knew that Max was around. It made him feel a little better. Then something happened that caught his attention as he was speeding passed one of the larger buildings.   
  
Scaffolding had been set up against the side of a three story building where a wall had collapsed part of an upper floor. He wasn't sure what, but something caught his attention and he curved back around to get a better look. His cruising speed made everything around him appear as if it was happening in slow motion and he only increased his speed when he needed to do something really fast. So the sight of a soldier hanging mid air after falling off the top of the scaffolding only shocked him a little. With a flare of energy he poured the speed on and shot forward thinking to catch the man.  
  
Then the world just came to a stop and Ranma found that he had been stopped in mid step with arcs of lighting flaring around him. The sound filling his ears as he seemed to almost stand there in a position that would have made him fall over normally. Wally West was right there beside him dressed in his deep red outfit with a weird look in his eyes. "Kid, if you run at that guy at your current speed you will kill him the instant you touch him."  
  
"I know you can't move right now, this entire conversation is taking place at one billionth of a second. I'm the only one that can move at this speed and still explain something to you. You need to consider your actions before you do them. Normally I would just save him myself, but I've been changing lately so talking to you is the better option at the moment and it will allow you to learn a bit about the Speed. Reach out to grab that guy as you were going to do, but send out a wave of the speed around you as well and for a brief second he will be moving at the same speed as you are. In that instant grab him and take him to safety." The Flash said as he vanished.  
  
The world seemed to blur into motion again and Ranma did as he said as he reached out to grab him. A wave of speed seemed to touch him a fraction of a second before he touched him and Ranma grabbed him. He didn't hear the sonic boom that rocked the area behind him as he grabbed the guy, dodged around some houses and circled back to the house. Sliding to a stop he sat the soldier down, who was out cold, and looked around to see if everybody was alright. Instead he saw that several of the soldiers were just noticing that he had saved the soldier and came running over.   
  
Gasping for air and suddenly feeling dizzy, Ranma dropped to one knee and tried to stay upright. A pair of hands grabbed him and he realized that Max had shown up to help him out. He handed him two large candy bars. "Here kid, eat these, they will help you out quite a bit."  
  
"Thanks." He gasped out and devoured the two bars instantly.  
  
"You went to fast and over taxed your body. The whole city had to have heard you break the sound barrier too. I'm quite surprised you were able to reach that level of speed this soon." Max said as the rest of the soldiers finally arrived to check on the guy Ranma had just saved.  
  
"Flash appeared and told...me what to do." Ranma muttered as the world stopped spinning a little.  
  
"Wally?" Max asked.  
  
Ranma nodded and repeated. "Told what to do."  
  
"I didn't even see him in the area." Max said thoughtfully.  
  
"He moving very, very fast he said."  
  
"Did he say anything else?"  
  
"No, just explain move and vanish."  
  
They looked up as Jay arrived on the scene and looked around for a second. "Heard a sonic boom and came running. What happened?"  
  
"Ranma here seems to have broken the sound barrier." Max explained.  
  
"What, he's gotten that fast already?"   
  
"Yeah, I thought was bit surprising as well. Usually takes most people a few weeks to make it that far."  
  
Grinning, Ranma pointed to himself. "Am Best!"  
  
"Hey kid, looks like someone wants to talk to you." Max said as one of the soldiers came over.  
  
After talking to the guys for a while and getting a lot of thanks they left and Ranma turned back to Max and Jay. "What next, need food, then more work?"  
  
"Hmm, it's still pretty early yet and we have lots of work left to do. I think you are pushing your limits though, and the human body can only take so much punishment at these speeds." Jay said.  
  
"Not tired like that." Ranma said. "Recover fast, just need lot of food to keep up."  
  
"Max?"   
  
"I've had him on rubble duty for the last few hours." Max said. "Did you finish that up?"  
  
Ranma nodded. "This last place."  
  
"Then finish up here, and then come find us or practice some of the things you've learned today." Max said. "After that we can decide what to do next, though I already have something in mind and we can spend most of the morning doing that tomorrow."   
  
"Okay." Ranma said, focused on the speed and let it envelop him as he took off in a stream of color.  
  
"Amazing." Jay muttered as they watched Ranma run. "I've never seen anyone learn so quick."  
  
"That kid has a lot of natural talent." Max said. "He has a few flaws though, like the inability to think for himself."  
  
"I had noticed that. He follows instructions perfectly, but doesn't seem to want to do anything on his own."  
  
"What do you think of the library tomorrow? Keystone Public Library withstood the quake with no damage."  
  
"You want him to read some books? I don't think he will do that." Jay said.  
  
"Not some, all of them, starting with the children's section on how to read and write."  
  
"Why not, it shouldn't take him to long to go through everything in there. I wonder if we could get Impulse to do the same thing?"  
  
They burst out laughing. "Yeah right!"   
  
**********  
  
After finishing up for the day Ranma decided it was time for a much needed break and headed back for Jay's house. He'd crisscrossed the city at least four or five hundred times in the last eight hours. During that time he had passed Jay's house about a dozen times for various reasons and finding his way back would be easy enough. He streaked across the base heading for the main gate. Blew by the guard and let his wake drag a bunch of wind along behind him to ruffle the guard with a grin and turned onto the main road. He headed down the block dodging various vehicles at high speed and thought about grabbing something to eat at the diner again when he all of a sudden he noticed something weird.  
  
Then he nearly ran into something a couple of blocks from the base. He was suddenly forced to dodge a white, blue and red blur that caught him completely by surprise. One of the first things Max had taught him was how to avoid running into things, so he was a bit surprised that this had happened at all. Cursing he grabbed the blur and tried to keep the two of them from running into a wall as he skidded to a stop. Well it wasn't so much a blur now that the sunlight was out of his eyes and was able to get a better look at what he had almost run into. There was a girl riding towards him as fast as she could on a bicycle and she wasn't paying attention either. She had a large pack strapped to the bicycle and he figured he'd just missed causing her some serious injury.  
  
"Hi?" Ranma started to say, and then she rode over him with the bicycle a second later. Leaving a tire stripe across his chest and face as he went down.  
  
Ranma blinked a few times as the girl's bicycle wheel passed over him and left him mildly concussed, then she suddenly slipped on a bit of broken concrete from the earthquake. Sending her flying off the bicycle and crashing towards the ground with a curse. He reacted before he realized what he was doing, again, and was up and after her in an instant. Half a millisecond later he plucked her from the air before she landed and hurt herself. Which would have been a good thing if the broken street that had caught her by surprise hadn't gotten him as well. Sending them to the ground in a tumbling heap.   
  
Instinctive skill took over and he rolled with the fall and placed himself on the bottom so that his back hit the ground before she did and they ended up several yards down the street where they slammed into a brick wall and came to a stop. Dull pain that had been aggravating him for the last few hours suddenly flared to new life as he tried to shake off. He groaned as he saw that he had taken some scrapes along his arms where they had protected the girl. Groaning he sat up and cradled the girl in his lap and shook his head. It was still spinning from being run over by her bicycle.  
  
"Ow!" He groaned. "What next?  
  
It was official now; Ranma was having a very bad day. Portions of his body just didn't want to stop hurting and now he was injured from slamming into the wall hard enough to crack it. The only thing that he was thankful for was that the girl didn't seem to be hurt. Even her long blond hair seemed to be in relatively decent condition after what happened and there was no sign of blood anywhere. He sighed as he moved to sit her down on the ground beside him when his bad luck seemed to decide that he hadn't suffered enough already.  
  
The girl's eyes snapped open, blinked a few times before turning to him, and suddenly focused in on his and opening wide in shock. Somewhere in the back of Charlie's mind she wondered what the hell had just happened. She could recall accidentally running over some guy who had appeared right in front of her while she was plot...thinking about her next mission when she suddenly crashed her bicycle. After that was a blur of motion as something strange happened.   
  
Then her mind cleared enough to realize that she was being held in the arms of a relatively well muscled guy. She looked down and confirmed that it was more than just being held by him, she was straddling the guy like some slut. Her eyes lit up with flames as he cringed back and brought her arm back to slap the boy for presuming to take advantage of her like this. "How dare you… PERVERT!"  
  
"Huh?" Ranma gasped suddenly. What had he done?  
  
"SLAP!"  
  
Growling, Ranma ignored the slap as he suddenly got angry and dumped the girl on the ground at his feet and stood up. "Why, ugly girl hit me for?!" Ranma yelled.   
  
"UGLY!!! ME?!!" Charlie screamed and lost all control.  
  
"WHAM!"  
  
"HOW!"  
  
"SMACK!"  
  
"DARE!"  
  
"CRACK!"  
  
"YOU!"  
  
"CALL...ME...UGLY!!!!" Charlie yelled as she kicked the crap out of Ranma right then and there.   
  
Four hits was about all that Ranma could stand as the dizziness that had been slowing him down since she ran over him finally cleared enough for him to start and dodge. "Ha-ha can do better than that!" He taunted and bounced out of the way.  
  
Charlie ground her teeth as she suddenly found it impossible to lay a finger on the boy. Every punch and kick she threw his way wasn't anywhere near him by the time it should have connected. Instead he was almost absently stepping out of the way and grinning at her every time she tried something. "Stand still and take your punishment like good pervert should!"  
  
"Ha! Like do something stupid like that!" Ranma laughed as he stepped to the side and gave her a little shove with his foot and sent her stumbling. "Got do better that to get me again."  
  
Charlie screamed, held her hands out as claws and lashed out at the boy only to have him dodge around her like the wind itself. Swing his body around like a snake and tapped her side with a finger before snapping back and sending her off balance a few steps later. She cursed him as she attacked and didn't care who heard her. All she wanted was to punish the pervert for touching her when shouldn't have.  
  
**********  
  
About half a block away, Max Mercury looked around a corner and winced, a little as he watched the girl do her best to maim the boy in some odd fashion. "I've never seen anyone have that kind of effect on a girl before, though I would say it looks like quite a case of love at first sight. Just look at them go."  
  
Jay, who was standing next to his friend shook his head and gave Max a weird look. "You're kidding, right? If we don't stop this that girl is going to continue to try and hit him, though from the looks of it Ranma is pretty good at dodging at least."  
  
Max nodded.  
  
They both cringed as Ranma failed to fend off a punch that turned out to be a feint and ended up taking a savage kick to family jewels. Or at least tried to, Ranma just jumped out of the way the moment her leg shot forward to kick him and he started to laugh. He flipped over her head with a casual ease born from years of practice using her head as a pivot point as he taunted her. Then he bounced up and down a couple of times wanting to know who she was looking at him like that.   
  
The show of agility and dexterity pulled Charlie out of her anger and into a state of shock directed at the boy beside her.   
  
Max and Jay had to blink in surprise. This was the first time they had actually seen Ranma do any kind of high level martial arts and they realized they had completely under estimated his level because of his young age. They watched as the girl turned to gape at him and wondered what was going to happen now. Watching Ranma was like watching a TV show; it was hard to figure out what in the world was going on at times.  
  
"The road to proper mastery of Speed is fraught with pain old friend." Max said as he nodded sagely. "But I'm not sure whose pain."  
  
"What sort of an idiot would say some thing like that?" Jay muttered as he looked at Max like he was a mad man.   
  
"In my defense it sounded like the right thing to say." Max said turning back to the rather painful introduction in progress just down the street.  
  
**********  
  
To be continued...  
  
End Notes - This turned out pretty good after rewriting over half of it in four days. I have been playing round with some things that may or may not stand out in the story. Like small clues to Ranma as he was before he lost a good portion of his memory. Like his strange appetite and the ability to eat constantly and not get full. He has no clue why, but he isn't about to pass up a meal just because he's eaten enough. His time with Genma is showing through in this and several other areas. I'm really not sure if they stand out enough, but I didn't want to make them to blatant either.  
  
Ah well, time will tell.  
  
Max here at the end is making that 'fraught with pain' saying and this is just a bit of fun I tossed in to give the story more of a Ranma 1/2 feel than anything Max would ever say. Charlie is also, if you hadn't noticed a bit like Akane and I'm sure people will point this out. I ask you, name one girl that hasn't decked Ranma at one point in time or another? Hmm? Every girl in Ranma's life has hit Ranma baring Kasumi, but she's never been after him as a potential fiancé anyway. I liked the idea of Charlie losing it and beating him up, it was so Ranma 1/2 like really. There is more to her than what you have seen in this chapter and that will be revealed in the next chapter when we find out a bit more about her grandpa and what he's done to her over the years.  
  
Ah, must mention Wally. This is a bit complicated, but at this time Wally is having a hard time with Linda. In the comics she's on the verge of leaving him and he's a bit irritable because he knows it subconsciously. The ring he gave to Jay is a costume that thought would fit Ranma to a 'T' and when he does get a chance to put it one I hope everyone likes it.   
  
Finally Ranma's training. He learns quick and with access to the speed he can learn more in a day than he ever could. That is why he's been able to do so much so soon. I still have a few things to detail training wise, but once those are out of the way Ranma will be given a chance to show his true abilities. Perhaps in chapter four.   
  
***  
  
Omake 2; Nothing good is ever on TV  
  
By BlindmanX  
  
Their eyes meet for the first time, blue gray faced dark green, and somewhere in the background on the top of a building a guy with wings and a bow took aim and drew back his string notched with an arrow. Biting his tongue as he took careful aim at the pair.   
  
"How dare you… " The girl started to yell.   
  
"SLAP!"  
  
Growling, Ranma ignored the slap as he suddenly got angry and dumped the girl on the ground at his feet and stood up. "Why, ugly girl hit for?!" Ranma yelled.   
  
"UGLY!!! ME?!!" Charlie screamed and lost all control.  
  
"WHAM!"  
  
"HOW!"  
  
"SMACK!"  
  
"DARE!"  
  
"CRACK!"  
  
"YOU!"  
  
"CALL...ME...UGLY!!!!" Charlie yelled as she kicked the crap out of Ranma right then and there.   
  
"….." Cupid said to himself as he un-notched the arrow that he had placed in his golden bow and reread his list of clients for today. Right there at the top was Charlie, the girl down below suplexing the boy into the street. Reading the list slowly as he un-rolled it a ways and spotting just how many girls names were on it was a bit of a surprise. Attached to Ranma's file (with a few stapled onto the bottom of the page) was the list of all the girls that would eventually attach themselves to the boy. Cupid did the only thing he could think of he shrugged his shoulders, pulled his golden bow and arrow notched the bow with another arrow. All the while taking aim from his spot on one of the last standing buildings in Keystone. With a quick tug he fired the golden arrow at the couple. All the while singing "Another one bits the dust."   
  
** Somewhere Else Entirely**  
  
It wasn't hard to replace the scrying pool with a big screen 60' inch TV, nor was it hard to fill all the sparse office of DEATH with eight lazy boy chairs sitting in a semicircle around DEATH'S giant TV. But what Death wanted to know was where all these people came from and why were they eating all the Pringles from his private stock. With that in mind DEATH asked the only thing he could think of at the time, "UH, WHO ARE ALL YOU PEOPLE AND WHY ARE YOU EATTING ALL MY POTATO CHIPS???"  
  
"Ask Loki, he's the one who give us the invite, Dude. Hey, is that girl doing what I think she's doing?" Rosewood asked as he reached for some more popcorn from the bowl that DEATH was holding.  
  
"LOKI, YOUR KIDDING PLEASE TELL ME YOUR KIDDING." DEATH said as he looked at the person that was eating his popcorn while not looking up from the TV.  
  
"Ok, where in the hell did she pull that mallet from?" Michael asked as he watched the carnage unfold on the TV. After seeing that Michael made up his mind never to eat jello again. With one sudden hand movement Michael grabbed some of the Pringles and chucked a couple into his mouth.  
  
"Yeah, first it was just missing punches and then out of nowhere... WHAM... kick to the nuts and a mallet to the head and he's completely at her mercy." Will said with his own can of Pringles in his lap, though they seemed to be mostly untouched.  
  
"Ah yeah, classic Ranma, one of these days I got to find out where that mallet comes from and who is the guy wearing the toga and aiming that arrow?" Black Dragon asked as he snatched a bowl of popcorn from DEATH'S lap and began munching on it just as his host was reaching for some.  
  
"HEY! GIVE THAT BACK!" DEATH snapped.  
  
"Oh him? That just cupid, look at the weirdo in those winged shoes... they were so last season." Loki added in as he popped back in with four new cans of Pringles and a tray of drinks that was floating along beside him like a small UFO.  
  
"Well I guess that he isn't killing them, that's good, but what is that arrow doing to that girl? She's acting really strange all of a sudden, or is it just me?" Michael asked as he grabbed one of the cans of Pringles out of Loki's hands.  
  
Matdeception looked at Michael and then at the TV which was showing a now blushing girl walk towards Ranma's KO'ed form "Its you, its all you. And pass me one of those cans or I'll kick your ass." In an instant the second can Loki had brought in with him was tossed to Matdeception. It was opened with a pop and everyone looked around to see if they would all start dancing and singing like in the commercial. It'd happened three times already.  
  
"WILL YOU PEOPLE STOP GRABBING THE PRINGLES I WANT SOME TOO................ OH, MY WHAT IS THAT GIRL DOING!!!" Death asked as he watch the TV.  
  
"You mean after all these centuries you don't know?" Loki asked looking a bit shocked at the TV himself. "Boy, she's pretty flexible."  
  
"Some one better be taping this..." Will said as the song 'In the jungle the mighty jungle' started to play from the speakers.  
  
DEATH blushed; don't even begin to try and understand how a skeleton in a hood can blush, but he pulled it off just the same.  
  
"I didn't think people could bend like that." Black Dragon said as he finished off the can of Pringles without taking his eyes off the TV. "She must be related to Plastic man."  
  
"SHE MUST DO YOGA... ADVANCE YOGA..." DEATH said as he turned his head to the side so he could see what was going on a bit better.  
  
"Okay, okay I'll add this to the list of 'jokes that fell threw' like the fake Neko-ken manuals, the home alone movies, the laws of physics, Microsoft windows, taxes, life insurance, etc." Loki said as he ate the last can of Pringles while checking to see if his hidden VCR was still recording.  
  
"I figure that one of them has got to get a really bad case of friction burn." Rosewood said as he polished off a beer. "If you guys ate all the Pringles there is going to be some serious ass to kick."  
  
"Damn, that's just looks so wrong... is she double jointed?" Will said as he looked for something to take his mind of what he was watching. "Hey, have you guys ever seen that Pringles commercial where those two hot girls and a guy were on that flat raft playing the Pringles theme song?"  
  
"Yea I saw it but compared to this... Good lord, is she using what I think she's using?" Black Dragon asked as his mouth hung open from the shock of it.  
  
A lightning bolt hit the ground just before the TV it read: "Stop using my name when you watch this stuff and send up a can of Pringles. Signed Kami-sama. But every one in the room was glued to the TV so they didn't notice.  
  
  
  
"A BANANA.... SHE USED A BANANA... CAN I MEET THIS GIRL???" DEATH asked in a awed voice but then when a light bulb popped into existence before his head. "I JUST REMEMBERED SHE HAS AN APPONTMENT."  
  
'That's gross totally gross... you got issues...." Matdeception said still watching the TV.  
  
With that the second lighting bolt came down dead smack on the TV and with a small smoky poof it went black leaving DEATH staring at a blank TV.  
  
"NO... IT CAN BE TRUE... ITS IMPOSSABLE." DEATH cried out and with a look of despair... or as much despair a guy dressed in a black cloak can pull off DEATH slowly moved over to his former still smoking TV and hugged it.  
  
"Uh, DEATH... you all right." Rosewood asked as he watched the odd display while finish off his drink.  
  
"YOU COME TO MY HOME EAT MY FOOD... ALL MY FOOD AND RECK MY DVD PLAYER BY SUSING IT AS A DRINK TRAY AND YOU ASK IF I'M ALRIGHT... WELL NO I'M NOT... ALRIGHT." DEATH said in a voice that seem to promise pain as he turned the formless guy in a cloak changed to a seven foot bad to the bone reaper had taken his place. "GET OUT."  
  
With those words all heck broke loose and the next thing the small group sitting down in font of DEATH found themselves air born, chairs and all.  
  
"Okay, could some one tell me where he get the mallet from?" Will asked as he flew backwards threw the air still in a sitting position. "I thought only girls could pull those things."  
  
Black Dragon nodded sagely and still in a sitting position stated "Takahashi's third law. Perhaps DEATH has a female skeleton."  
  
Everyone groaned.  
  
"What the heck are you talking about......" Michael was interrupted by the hard cold solid ground. "Ouchie."  
  
"Oh my. Did you get the Pringles for Urd like she asked?" Belldandy asked as she stood at the front of the temple.  
  
"Could some one just say THE END and put us out of our missery?   
  
***  
  
Special Thanks to:  
  
Master Yume  
  
BlackDragon  
  
Matdeception  
  
and of course DEATH!  
  
"OH MY, I'VE NEVER BEEN HONORED WITH AN AWARD BEFORE." Death said as he held up the little glowing statue and held up up to the light. "WHAT IS THE NATIONAL BOWLERS LEAGUE FOUTH PLACE MEAN?"  
  
And there you have it.   
  
_ 


	3. Chapter 02

**********  
  
Sudden Burst of Speed  
  
Chapter 02  
  
Cory D. Rose - ertle2@msn.com  
  
BlindmanX - blindmanx@hotmail.com  
  
(c) 2003  
  
**********  
  
Crawling out of bed the next morning Ranma learned the first lesson every speedster had to learn in the first few weeks after learning how to use their speed. He groaned as he rolled over and sat on the edge of his bed and thanked all the Kami in existence that he wasn't using a typical Japanese bed. Every muscle in his body throbbed with pain as he sat there holding his head in his hands. He tried to stand up, but his legs felt so bad that he nearly collapsed to the floor when they refused to hold his weight.  
  
"I do not need this right now." He muttered in Japanese.   
  
"Ah, I thought I heard you moving around up here." Joan said as she looked into the room and smiled at him.   
  
"I hurt."   
  
She smiled again. "I thought so. Can you stand?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Then let me get you something to eat and you just lay there and get some rest. You will be up and about in a little while."  
  
Ranma shook his head. "Can force self, need to move around little." Reaching deep within himself he found his Ki again and let it spread throughout his body slowly energizing his tired muscles and forced himself to stand up with a groan of pain. He could feel every muscle in his body settling as he stood there and forced himself to take a step. A tingling flowed down his back and he groaned again.   
  
It wasn't the worst Ranma had felt in his short time here but as he slowly streached his body out as he leaned againts the wall near to the bathroom.the muffeled grunts were the only outward signs that some of the kinks on his sour back and arms were lessing. With a sudden almost mind jarring crack his back realined itself. When the burst of pain passed only the wall and his hands being on it kept him standinging.  
  
"Don't push yourself to much dear." Joan said as she grabbed onto his shoulder and steered him out of the room. "You need a hot bath I think it will do you soime good."  
  
"Sound good."   
  
"I'll draw one up for your then."  
  
A few minutes later, after using the wall to staggering down the hall with as much dignity as he could muster Ranma entered the bathroom and found a large bathtub filled with steaming water. It wasn't a furo like he was used to using, but it would work as far as he was concerned. Slowly stripping down, as not to send himself into a spiral of pain again he lowered himself into the tub slowly and let the heat seep into his body with a sigh and let his Ki continue to flow through his body. Within a few minutes he was feeling considerably better and he took a few moments to stretch his aching muscles the water helped ease some of the strain on his back, arms and especialy legs. He stayed there working out the kinks and relazing for quite a while before the water began to cool down.  
  
Getting gingerly out of the tub, he grabbed a towel left for him by Joan and dried off and got dressed it took time he made certain that he didn't pull anything by just pulling the shirt over his head. The pain was still there but mercyfully he could feel his body adapting to it as he moved around and figured that within a few days he would be able to use his speed all the time without having to put up with muscles that sore again. He walked out into the living room tugging at the neckline of the clothing he was now wearing. Blue jeans and a t-shirt just didn't seem to suit him, neither did the slight itching of the fabric and he wondered if there was something else to wear.  
  
"Are you feeling better Ranma?" Joan asked as he sat down at the table.  
  
"A little, still sore."   
  
Sitting across from him at the table Jay looked up from his paper. "We are going to do something about your English today."  
  
"What?"   
  
"You need to improve it and I know of a quick way to help you learn the language. We'll do that this morning when we stop by the library."  
  
"Boring." Ranma muttered.  
  
"You would be surprised." Jay said with a grin. "You can read an entire library worth of books in just a few mintues if you move fast enough."  
  
"Can no read English." Ranma said.  
  
"You will by the time we're done with you." Jay explained.  
  
"Oh joy." An already bored Ranma muttered.  
  
**********  
  
The library that Jay took him to turned out to be on the other side of the river in Central City. At first Ranma hadn't even known that he had entered a completely different city, but Jay had pointed out that Central City and Keystone City were known as the Sister Cities. They were so intertwined with each other that they were hard to tell apart at times.   
  
They had taken their time to eat finishing off the breakfast Joan had fixed them before setting out across one of the several bridges that crossed the Missouri river and entered Central City a few minutes later. The run had been a little slow. No where near as fast as he had been pushing himself the day before, but still faster than any car could travel. This was patrolling speed according to Jay. It allowed them to move fast and still see everything they needed to without pushing themselves to their limits in a matter of minutes.   
  
Ranma wouldn't admit to anyone, but he was thankful that Jay hadn't pushed him too hard on the run into Central City. Even with the stretching he had done earlier he could tell that he wasn't up for a full speed run and that he needed to find a way to push himself to his limits again. His Ki was working over time to adjust to the new energies that were flowing through him as well and it was adding to the strain on his body.   
  
Even with his spotty memory he knew that he hadn't been forced to push his abilities like this in a long time. Surprisingly he found that the speed energy was also making minor changes to him as well. Nothing to weird, but as and experienced martial artist he had trained hard to tell when the smallest change had happened to his body. It was a little hard to believe that only two days had passed since he arrived here and learned about the technique, but its effects were already in full swing.   
  
The first thing he noticed was that his Ki was getting this electrical distortion effect about it. It wasn't really noticeable on the outside, but he could feel how it moved around inside him slowly making its alterations. This somehow seemed to make the speed energy flow throughout his body a bit smoother than it had at first. If he wasn't careful he could feel it trying to accelerate him even when was sitting still.  
  
It did have a nice side effect though, making his reflexes faster than they had been and loosening up his tired muscles at the same time. Even the run was helping to fix his tired muscles. The blasted stuff didn't seem to have any effect on his memory though and he was still struggling to remember whatever he could with his bad memory. He could remember any fighting style or move he had ever encountered, but that when it came to his personal life and information almost all of it was missing. Unfortunately that didn't seem to be happening and it was irritating him beyond belief.   
  
He hated the idea that he knew his name, but that there didn't seem to be anyway for him to remember his past unless he pushed his mind hard enough to get a migraine. From the number of scars on his body he could remember that he'd been training for years and had a story to go with each one. He knew the precise angle he had to be at in order to punch through a wall, but didn't know how to put it into words to explain it or who had told it to him.   
  
At the same time he did remember some shadow demon punching him a few times when he didn't get it right the first time he learned the technique. Then there was another aspect that was starting to irritate him even more than his memory, his dreams. The last couple of nights had brought nightmares about that some shadowy, baldheaded devil and a pit filled with evil demons that wanted to strip the flesh from his bones. That last one had made him wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and about to scream in terror.  
  
He looked around the library as they entered and tried to distract himself from his thought. "This place big."   
  
"I was told that there are over fifty thousand books in this library." Jay explained as he handed Ranma five note books and a couple of pens. "We have a lot of work to do and I don't want to be here to long, so let's get to work."  
  
The sheer number of books astounded after he took a second to figure out just how many that was. "How read that many?"  
  
Jay just grinned. "This morning you are going to work your way through all of these books by learning a new way to use your speed."  
  
"You kidding?"  
  
"No my boy, you have a lot of reading ahead of you. Now let's get started in this area over here." Jay said as he led the boy over to the children's section as he explained the process to Ranma. "I know you are still sore from all the running you did yesterday, so I won't push you to hard, but I expect you to finish this library today. Now I want you to start with these books here."  
  
"I try." Ranma muttered as he looked at the sea of books around him. If he hadn't already experienced just how fast these guys could move he would have written the whole thing off as impossible.  
  
"Good, I'm going to go and get some coffee and talk to the Librarian for a minute to explain what we're doing. It's why I dressed up in my uniform today. I'll be right back. Oh, and remember to start taking notes as you learn to read and write the language."  
  
"Okay." Ranma muttered. He wasn't looking forward to it, but he figured that doing this was better than brooding over his missing memories.   
  
He took a deep breath and calmed his mind as he let the energy slowly flow through him as he forced it to move the way he wanted it to. At first he couldn't really understand what Jay was talking about when he said to just ride the energy and give it a nudge every now and then. Then he started to understand and let the energy flow increase. Almost instantly multiple images of Ranma raced across the children's section flickering in and out of the visible spectrum. Ghostly images of Ranma as he started to slowly teach himself how to read at super speed.  
  
They were sitting next to each other, each one looking through a different book or taking vague notes, and flickering in and out of sight as the seconds ticked by. The books themselves seemed to dance in the air as he worked his way through every book he could get his hands on. By the time he was over halfway through the section a couple of minutes later he was starting to fill the first note book up with printed letters.   
  
He was using several pages for each letter of the alphabet as he learned. His confidence started to grow as the seconds ticked by and his images started to take on a subtle blue glow that he didn't seem to notice. They were no longer flickering as he sped up. Instead they were almost solid now and only lasted about half a second before they vanished.   
  
A good number of the books were a bit fragile and took special handling, but he managed to make his way through them without hurting them to much. He did manage to rip a page here and there when he wasn't careful enough with them though. By the time Jay did return he was grinning as he walked into the section and spotted all the after images of Ranma reading book after book.   
  
He counted over thirty images as he sipped at his coffee and knew the kid had started to master the technique. Then, just as the ten minutes was beginning to count down the images suddenly started to reduce in number until there was only one Ranma sitting at a nearby table writing down the last of his notes and proving that he had mastered how to print in English.  
  
"So how much did you learn?"  
  
"Quite a bit." Ranma said as he tested out his improved vocabulary.  
  
"I knew this was the place to start. You learn fast, I saw that yesterday and figured this would be a great way to get you up to 'speed' so to speak." Jay said with a laugh.  
  
"Oh ha ha." Ranma mumbled.   
  
"How are you feeling? Did you work off your breakfast yet?"  
  
"No, but I am feeling a bit drained after all that. My body still hurts of course. And let's not mention the headache I just created." He said as he massaged his temples.  
  
"That can't be helped I'm afraid. As for the headache that is a given considering what you are doing. Taking in this much information at once is bound to cause some side effects for someone that has never done it before. We have the rest of the library to work through as well and I want to get home in time for lunch. Then I have a surprise. That is if you manage to finish all the books anyway."  
  
"You sure I can learn all this in one day?" Ranma asked as the headache started to reduce a bit.  
  
"Yes, but you have limits and I'm pushing you to find out just how far you can go before you reach yours. That's why there are so many books for you to go through."  
  
"Ah, well let's get to work then. I want to finish this today before I die of boredom." Ranma said.  
  
Jay handed him a bag. "Eat that and then we can continue on to the next part of the lesson."  
  
Ranma pulled a sub sandwich out of the bag and ate it in just a few bites as Jay led him over to the side of the library.   
  
"You will notice that there are twenty large stacks here, each one has five shelves full of books and a ladder to reach the highest shelves. The ladder is on rollers so you can move it along the stack easily. I want you work you way through each stack. Ten minutes for two stacks at once and I want notes taken on what you find in each of then. If you need more note books I'll go and get you some."  
  
"That's more books than the children's section!" Ranma whined.  
  
"I know that. Now that you have mastered how to read them quickly I want you to push yourself to go even faster."  
  
"But..." Ranma muttered.  
  
"Right now even Impulse could beat you at this, so you need to learn how to go faster."  
  
Ranma sighed. The children's section had been a bit of an insult, but at least he had learned a lot from it. He wondered what else there was to learn from these other books and if he could do it without falling asleep. "Alright, I'm up for the challenge."  
  
Reaching into his pocket Jay pulled out a small digital timer and set it for ten minutes. "Ready, set, GO!"   
  
Ranma blurred and seemed to split off into forty different versions that swarmed over the two different sections. Once again books seemed to be dancing around the book shelves as he read them right there and put them back before anyone could even read the title. At the same time five different images worked at nearby tables taking notes and assimilating all the information. His pen flew across the paper and filled each page faster than the eye could blink.  
  
"Ranma, you're moving too slow! Move so fast that I can't see after images!" Jay yelled out.  
  
"Hai..." Ranma said from forty different locations and almost setting off an echo as the sound seemed to come from several different locations at once.  
  
"Concentrate!" He yelled and nodded as he noticed that the images were starting to blur in and out of position without returning. "Faster!"  
  
By the time the alarm on the clock went off Ranma was exhausted and still had about twenty books to go. His pride wouldn't let him skip even one book, nor to skim over the pages instead of reading them. So he was really disappointed that he hadn't managed to pull it off. Jay walked down to the end of the stack and looked at how far he had gotten.   
  
"You almost made it, but you weren't moving fast enough and towards the end there you started to leave after images again." He pointed out.  
  
"Sorry." He said as he gasped for breath. "I'll do better on the next one."  
  
"Quickly now, finish off those last few books. You have two minutes to do it at a little slower speed and then come over to the desk and sit down for a few minutes." Jay said.  
  
"Alright." Ranma said as he straightened up and quickly read through the last few books in a matter of seconds. And then he seemed to appear at the table almost as Jay arrived.   
  
"Over the years us Flash's have read several libraries like this for various reasons. It was usually when we were fighting for our lives against a criminal that managed to outwit us." Jay explained. "Most of us could have finished this place within five minutes."  
  
Ranma gave him a disbelieving look.  
  
"You aren't even using your full potential Ranma. You were inside the Speed Force and when you go there you gain a link greater than the rest of us. If what Max says it true, you and Wally both channel the speed energies through your bodies at such high levels that there should be no limit to how fast you can go."  
  
"I feel like I am at my limit now." Ranma muttered, looking a little lost and winded.  
  
"You are limiting yourself because you have no clue what you can do and you are trying to rationalize what you are learning. I think you have to move beyond that limit to reach your full potential. Wally took years to do that, subconsciously making himself slower than the man that trained him. You are doing something similar only you don't have someone like Barry Allen to look up to."  
  
"Who?"   
  
"After reading all those books and magazines you still don't know who Barry Allen is?" Jay asked in surprise, then shook his head and remembered the kid had a case of amnesia. "We can swing by the Central City Flash Museum here after while and get you caught up on some of the Flash History."  
  
"Cool."   
  
"Anyway, you are subconsciously limiting yourself and you shouldn't do that with the speed energies. It might cost you like it's done to Wally on more than one occasion. Now get up, it's time to move onto the next two stacks and I don't want to see any after images this time. I just want you to use pure speed to read so fast that the images don't even have time to form. Once you are done with that I'll get you something else to eat so you can replenish your energies again."  
  
Ranma nodded as he stood up, stretched a bit, and took a second to clear his mind as he walked over to the next two stacks. "Alright, let's get this finished."  
  
Reaching out Jay tapped the clock and it started to count down again. "Go!" This time Ranma vanished from sight in a burst of electricity and Jay was a bit surprised that the kid didn't set off a sonic boom. Then again setting off that kind of effect in this sort of enclosed space was quite hard to do when you were as inexperienced as the boy. A part of his mind wondered what it would be like if Impulse would take the time to do things like this. How far along would the boy be right now if he had learned all this the proper way? He shook his head and decided that kind of thinking was a bit unfair of him.   
  
His eyes tracked Ranma's progress though the stack and he was quite pleased to see that after just a few minutes Ranma was over halfway through the next set of stacks. He took a second to glance at one of the note books and was also happy to see that the boy's English was improving almost as fast as he was reading the books.   
  
Sitting down at the table he flipped though the paper and slowly drank his coffee as he waited for the alarm to go off. He noticed that there was an article about the break in the night before and a list of what had been stolen. Some of the items reminded him of the old days when he had owned his own business. He looked up as Ranma came to a stop in front of the table and took a few seconds to slowly finish writing his notes down.   
  
"Done." He said.   
  
A glance at the clock showed that he still had three minutes to go before his time was up. "Excellent work!"  
  
Ranma smirked.  
  
"That means we can reduce the time."   
  
Ranma frowned and collapsed into a chair with a long suffering sigh. "You want to kill me don't you?"   
  
Resetting the clock to six minutes Jay sat it down and grinned. "The faster you go the quicker you finish."  
  
"Can we take a break? This is kind of boring."  
  
"Nope, you still have quite a ways to go before you are done, but I will give you a break here in a little while."  
  
Ranma sighed again and took a second to stretch his sore muscles again.  
  
After eating another large sandwich he tapped the start switch on the clock and Ranma was off again. This time he learned how to streamline his moves so that he could move about even faster than before. He moved so fast that he started a light breeze inside the building, strong enough to blow Jay's hair around a little.   
  
And this was how it continued for the next forty minutes as he made his way through stack after stack of books, and finally ending the tortuous session doing the last four stacks with a two minute limit. He barely managed that one and by the time he was done he barely had enough energy to stagger over to a table and collapse into a chair and gasp for air. He couldn't remember a time in his life when he had ever been this wore out.   
  
Looking up from his paper Jay turned the buzzer off and stood up, taking a second to fold his paper and put it back on the table. "You did it Ranma."  
  
"Heh, I'm the best." He gasped out and held up a thumb.  
  
"Not yet, but you very well could be the best one of these days." Jay said as he handed him another sub sandwich and a bottle of water. "I didn't expect you to actually go through all these books today either." He mused.  
  
"You didn't?" Ranma asked in surprise.  
  
"Nope, but I realized you just might pull it off when you almost completed the first test of your abilities." Jay explained. "Learning how to read and write in ten minutes, without having any experience at doing it and barely any instruction from me was incredible. It was amazing really."  
  
"Well, like I said. I'm the best." Ranma said with a smirk.  
  
"Now you get to spend the rest of the day learning the hard stuff."   
  
"Hard stuff?" Ranma muttered.  
  
"Yep, yesterday you learned how to dodge around obstacles and even caught that guy that fell. Then today you learned to refine your speed and taught yourself how to read and write and improved your language skills. The day isn't even half over and you still have time to learn more."  
  
"Oh joy." Ranma muttered. "Bring it on I guess. I can do anything you guys can."  
  
"Oh really?" Max Mercury said as he stepped in front of the table and a bit of speed energy arched around him for a second, then he looked over at Jay. "You show him the puzzle yet?"  
  
"Nope, he just finished reading every book in the library."   
  
"It took you all morning to do that?"   
  
"Well he was moving all wrong and I had to explain some of the basics to him. I think the puzzle would work for the next step."  
  
"Puzzle?" Ranma asked.  
  
"Yeah, you have to throw a ten thousand piece puzzle into the air and complete it without letting any of the pieces fall on the ground. At first I'll let you use the picture as a guide and then move on to doing it without the picture by using the back of the puzzle. Average time should be three to five seconds at the most." Max explained. "It teaches you to refine your speed even more and boosts your hand and eye abilities."  
  
"That sounds easy enough." Ranma said.  
  
They started to laugh. "You say that now, but wait until you have to pick the pieces up off the floor. I'd make you do that one piece at a time too, just make you practice." Max said with a laugh.  
  
"Still, at least it won't be as boring as this place." Ranma said and pointed over at the books with his thumb.  
  
"Well I just wanted to check on you two and see if either of you needed any help. Wally needed some help with Impulse today, so I'll be around if anything pops up that needs my attention." Max said as he vanished as quickly as he appeared.  
  
It didn't take Jay to long to find some puzzles, the library carried quite a few of them in their storage room for special projects and school functions. Jay took three different versions, a really simple hundred piece puzzle, a thousand pieces, and a ten thousand piece puzzle and took them back to the table. He started with the smallest one first and dumped the pieces in his hand and looked over at Ranma. "Watch."  
  
He tossed the pieces up into the air and Ranma watches as the guy's hands seemed to move so fast that they vanished. In less than a second he had the puzzle was completely done and sitting on the desk in front of him. Holding it up he let Ranma get a good look at the picture before breaking it back into pieces again. "There you go. Think you can do that?"  
  
"Looks easy enough, but what in the world is a Mighty Mouse?" Ranma said as Jay placed the pieces in his hands.   
  
"An old cartoon character if I remember right. Now just toss them up and put the puzzle together just like I did."  
  
He started out a bit slow, but a dozen or so tries later Ranma finally managed to get the dinky little thing put together before all the pieces hit the table. He wasn't all that happy with his results either. "I didn't think it would be that hard."  
  
"It doesn't look that hard, but it takes even more speed than reading the books does. You are also going about it the hard way, trying to fit every piece together correctly and spending way to much time studying the puzzle."  
  
"Then what do I need to do?"  
  
"I'm not going to tell you, this is a test of your abilities after all." Jay said. "By figuring it out on your own you will learn something that you will never forget."  
  
Pacing back and forth a few times Ranma tried to figure out what he was doing wrong and remember what Jay had said. He was trying too hard. With that in mind he tossed the pieces in the air again and kicked the speed energy into over drive. He didn't see Jay stare at him as an aura of electricity formed around him for a split second. The puzzle pieces seemed to just hang in the air as he started to move faster than they could fall and he started grabbing pieces and randomly trying to fit them into place. With a second flare of speed energy he reappeared holding the puzzle. "Like that?"  
  
"Exactly! You don't have to carefully find each piece when you can go so fast that randomly trying each piece allows you to put the thing together even faster."  
  
"I see. So I was over thinking the test?"  
  
"Yep. Now I think it's time to move onto the thousand piece puzzle and see how long it takes you to get this one completed."   
  
Now that he had the process worked out Ranma had no troubles getting the two puzzles completed in a mater of seconds. Although the ten thousand piece puzzle happened to take him several tries because he wasn't going fast enough to get all the pieces. By then it was midmorning and Ranma could feel himself getting tired every time he used the speed and no amount of food seemed to work.   
  
They put everything away and Jay took a second to thank the librarian for letting them use the library to train. Ranma noticed that she seemed to be in a bit of a daze, but didn't really worry about it. He figured people around here must have been used to all this speed stuff.   
  
"So what are we going to do now?"  
  
"Well you're way ahead of where I expected you to be at so I'm not sure. I suppose I could give you the rest of the day off." Rubbing his chin, Jay looked Ranma over and wondered what to do with him. "How does that sound?"  
  
"Sure, I wanted to explore around anyway." Ranma said with a nod.  
  
"Excellent, I have something I need to take care of as well." Jay said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone and explained how it worked. "If anything happens call Joan and she can get a hold of me if there is an emergency. Max is also in the area so he might be able to help you out as well."  
  
Ranma took the phone, but he really didn't plan on using it even if he was in trouble. "Alright."  
  
Half a second later Ranma lost sight of Jay as he sped away and vanished in the distance. He really was quite surprised to be out on his own, but he was happy to have a bit of free time as well. Perhaps it showed that they trusted him more than he thought they did. Being on his own was all fine and dandy, but he needed some money if he was going to get some clothes that would suit him better than what he currently had on. He would need one thing first. "Where the hell am I going to get any money?"  
  
A little while later Ranma found what he as looking for down a side street on the far side of Central City. A Dojo. Grinning a little he walked in and looked around. The place wasn't the traditional type he was used to using, but it had a decent set up and from the forty or so students he could see out on the floor they seemed to have a pretty good business going. One of the instructors walked over when he saw him. "Good morning. I'm Deric Mason."  
  
"Hello. I was wondering if you needed any help teaching for the day?"  
  
The guy gave him a weird look. "How do you mean?"  
  
"Training the students. I need to make a bit of money and I thought this would be the perfect place to earn some." Ranma explained.   
  
"What styles do you know?"  
  
"I know the basics to just about everything. I use a free form style called Anything Goes and I can easily teach the type you are using here though."  
  
The guy, who was well built for his size, looked Ranma over for second as if debating something. "I do need some help with a class this size, but you will need to show me what you can do first. You do look a bit young, but I can tell by the way you walk that you are an experienced fighter. How long have you been training?"  
  
He had to think about it for a few seconds, but he finally remembered when he started to learn so long ago. Though there were surprisingly few details he could truly remember of those early days he did recall that he was about five when he started. "About ten years ago, my father took me on a training trip."   
  
"Ten years, huh? Not bad, I've got about the same amount myself. If you can help teach them I'll give you fifty dollars at the end of the day. Of course that is after we clean this place up. I also want to test your skill to see how good you are. It'll be a good show for the kids."  
  
"Deal." Ranma said as he stepped over to the mat and took his weird looking shoes off. Then he followed the guy out onto the mat as the students moved off to the sides. They were all talking excitedly among themselves. Ranma noticed that most of them were midlevel students that rarely got a chance to see any real fighting.   
  
Even before the test started Ranma had decided to stick to the style taught in the dojo just to show them what he could do. So when Deric attacked with punch and kick combo Ranma retaliated with a series of simple blocks and let Deric lead the fight for the next several attacks. It had been several days since Ranma had been in a real fight. One of the first things he noticed was that he had lost a bit of his edge.   
  
His reflexes, though fast, weren't as fluid as they used to be. It came back to him quickly enough and within about twenty attacks he was holding his own against Deric. Every now and then they would throw each other to the floor or perform a kick that was promptly blocked. It was exactly what Ranma wanted and he could feel the tension in the air increasing as the fight continued.  
  
"Ready to pick it up a notch?" He asked with a grin.  
  
Deric just grinned and seconds later Ranma started to lead the fight across the dojo with a series of flips and sweeps that his opponent barely managed to avoid. Grinning, Ranma just did as he always did in a fight and slowly picked up the pace until he found his opponents full ability and pushed him to his limits. It was always more fun that way.   
  
He ignored the part of his mind that said that he could easily take this guy down if he used his speed abilities and stuck to a normal fighting speed. Well it was normal for him anyway. Twenty minutes later, covered in sweat and grinning a bit, Deric stopped the fight with a forearm block to Ranma's spin kick.   
  
"That's enough." He said.  
  
Ranma, though tired from everything he had done a few hours before wasn't all that winded. "Oh?"  
  
Turning to the class Deric had them all sit down in lines again. "Class, Ranma here will be helping out with the class today. Say hello."  
  
"Hello Ranma." They said and Ranma just grinned. He remembered doing this before and it seemed like fun.  
  
"So did you like the fight?" He asked.  
  
The class all started talking at once and watched as Deric went to find a towel and led the class through some of the stuff that he had used during the fight.  
  
**********  
  
Winged helmet gleaming in the sunlight, Jay Garrick came to a stop in front of the small building and took a second to get his bearings as several of the uniformed policemen took notice of him and waved. A few decades before, he'd been asked to stop in front of the Police commissioner's building instead of blowing through it like a bat out of hell.   
  
Of course he didn't always obey this request, but these days he was only here once or twice a year so it didn't matter that much. He still liked to keep on their good side though. He walked up the stairs leading up to the front door and wondered why his old friend had called him out of the blue like this.   
  
Getting Ranma's training done was a top priority right now, but during the call his friend had insisted that he come right over. Only explaining that it had something to do with a request Jay had made some years before. Jay had no idea what it could be, but it had sounded important enough to make him get here as soon as he could. Ranma was old enough to take care of himself for a few hours anyway. With any luck he wouldn't be here to long and he could get back to Ranma and get to a few more lessons before it was time to go home.   
  
Wally and Max were currently busy trying to control Impulse, so they were out of the question at the moment. On top of all that Wall had all that stuff with Linda was starting so he was a little too distracted to help Ranma learn how to use his abilities at the moment. Every girl had her secrets, but Linda had been a little strange lately.   
  
The girl should have known that living with a superhero would be a bit rough and accepted it like his wife Joan had learned to do. Instead Wally was turning into a jealous boyfriend because of Linda's actions and only causing problems, but they would figure it out. He hoped.  
  
"Hey Jay, how goes the war?" One of the officers at the admit desk asked as he walked through the front door and over to the admissions desk.  
  
"Percy! They still got you on desk duty?" Jay asked happily.  
  
The somewhat rotund man wearing a pair of glasses looked more like a gangster than a cop, but it took all types to do this job. "Heh, I got rotated in again."  
  
"Punishment?"  
  
The cop nodded and suddenly looked like he was completely depressed. "How was I supposed to know that shooting the gun at the firing range would cause that kind of thing to happen?"  
  
Jay blinked. "Sorry, you lost me there..."  
  
Percy laughed nervously. "I was test firing a gun, but the bullet went through the target, the back wall, and even managed to go through the wall of dirt on the other side and land at the feet of one of the rookies. Guy was a total wimp. He screamed like a girl, wet himself, and fainted right there in front of the Captain and the rookies family."   
  
Laughing, Jay just shook his head and remembered that Percy liked to play with exotic guns, though this was a first. "I'm here to see James, is he in?"  
  
"James Doogan?"  
  
Jay nodded. "Yep, he asked me to come down and talk to him about something."  
  
Percy reached across the desk and pulled a small book to him and glanced at it for a second then reached into a nearby drawer and pulled out a clip on visitors pass. "Here you are, Doogan called down and told us to send you up as soon as you got here. Sign this and here's your guest pass."  
  
"Thanks, is he still on the third floor?"  
  
Percy nodded. "If you want just take the elevator."  
  
"Forget that, I've got to keep my reputation you know!" Jay yelled as he ran up the stairs about ten times faster than a normal person could move. Half a second later he was on the third floor, dodging around a couple of officers and stopped in front of his friend's office.   
  
Adjusting his winged helmet he knocked on the door and opened the door to look in. His friend was sitting at his desk as usual and working on reports. Jay had once been a forensic scientist for the police, back when he kept a secret ID, but he'd given that up for the most part a few years ago. James was a friend from way back when, so the sixty something guy looked a lot older than he really was. James was wearing a rumpled brown suit, a fedora, and smoking a cigar in the fashion of all old time cops.   
  
"Jay, glad you could make it!" James said as he stood up and they shook hands.  
  
"Good to see you again. It's been a couple of years hasn't it?"  
  
James nodded with a grin as he puffed at his cigar. "True, but I got a card from you and Joan at Christmas though."  
  
Jay nodded and reminded himself that his wife could remember all her friends, all his friends, and for some reason all the friends those people has as well. It was an eerie talent that never failed to amaze him. "So what was the call about?"  
  
Sitting back down, James stopped smiling as he reached into one of the drawers at the side of his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. "Some time ago, thirty or forty years ago, you gave me a list of things to look out for and asked me to tell you about them if they were ever stolen in a large quantity. As you know, most of the paper work for the whole city eventually comes across my desk if any kind of crime is committed. My computer helps me out quite a bit and during one of its weekly searches for various things it came across some matches for the items on that list."  
  
"I don't recall..." Jay started to say. There was some nagging memory, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what it was. All those years were like an eternity for a guy that could move like he did.  
  
"I never would have noticed this if it hadn't been found by the computer actually. It was on an obscure report several months old, hand written no less and only entered into the computer when the records it was filed with were to be incinerated." James handed the piece of paper over to Jay and frowned. "My notes on what that was for are completely gone and all I know is that you were to be informed if any of those items were ever stolen."  
  
Glancing over the page, Jay was a bit surprised to see some compounds there that hadn't been used in some time. They had been replaced over the years by more advanced or trustworthy compounds. "This is familiar, but I can't recall what they were used for."  
  
"Me either, but I think it has to do with one of the rogues gallery for the Flash Family, one of the early ones from your time as the Flash."  
  
"I'll have to look this up back home, check over some of my own notes and see if I can get a match."  
  
James nodded. "By the way, who is the new kid you've been hanging out with the last few days?"  
  
Jay blinked. "You mean the kid with the black hair?"  
  
Nodding, James leaned back in his chair. "The oriental one, several of the officers have been wondering what in the world you guys are doing with so many people using super speed to fight crime. It's got people nervous."  
  
"That's ridiculous."   
  
"I know, but you might want to be on guard, some of the higher ups are idiots and they have this funny idea that Wally is building an army of you guys to do something."  
  
Blinking in surprise Jay burst out laughing and had to take close to a minute to stop. "Ah! That's the funniest thing I've ever heard!"  
  
"Heh, thought so." James said with a laugh as well.  
  
"See ya James, I have to go, but I don't think you will have to worry about the kid. He recently got a connection to the speed and we've been training him to use it wisely. Give him a few weeks and I think he will be helping us out around the city like a pro, he learns fast."  
  
"Alright, good luck." James said as Jay left the office and ran out of the building. He leaned back and counted to one hundred to see if his friend would come back for any reason. Then he let out a loud sigh of tired resignation and sat up to grab his phone. Tapping out a short number, he dialled the extension that went right to his boss and started talking the instant it was picked up.  
  
"Yeah, he was just here...I just gave it to him and asked about the new kid...there shouldn't be any problems, Jay is a good judge of character...Yes sir...Yes sir...No sir...Goodbye sir." He said quickly and hung up and glared at the phone before leaning back in his chair and sighing again.   
  
"Inter-office politics sucks."  
  
**********  
  
"Charlie!"   
  
Sitting on her hover bike as it hovered above the floor of the lab in her grandpa's garage, the girl in question turned to see him stalking through the door. She cringed a little and wondered what she might have done to make him mad again. They normally got along fine, but lately he had been getting more and more grouchy. It didn't take much to set him off and she had been trying to make sure she did everything she could to appease his anger.   
  
So as he came to a stop and glared up at her she flipped a switch and the cycle went into an automatic landing sequence that rotated the hover plates where the tires should have been and gently sat the cycle down with a barely heard thunk. The short shock of the landing had jolted her a bit.  
  
"Hi grandpa." She said nervously, pretending to smile.  
  
"What did I tell you about using that?!" He yelled.  
  
"Not to take it outside."   
  
"No! I said not to use it at all until I finished some of the calibrations!"  
  
Carefully dismounting from the bike she moved several steps away from him and tried not to look him in the eye. It would just make things worse than being yelled at. "I thought you were done with them..."  
  
"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THOUGHT!" He screamed, making her wince back. "GET OUT! OUT OUT OOUUUTTTT!!"  
  
She fled the room and barely missed being hit by the door as it slammed shut right behind her and rattled the whole wall. Shuddering a little she glared at the closed door and stuck her tongue out at him, comfortable with the knowledge he'd never know. Spinning around on her foot she stalked down the hall and into the living room to find something to do that wouldn't set him off again. She wasn't really in the mood either, but the quicker she got him to calm down the sooner could get to the base and get that mission out of the way.   
  
Her grandpa had even taken the time to get a hold of the layout of the base and mapped the locations of everything for her. She just needed to go in and get them. That was what the hover bike was for since they had recently stepped up security a bit. She didn't know why either.   
  
The place had been peaceful and quiet for the two months she'd been looking into the job on a weekly basis. Now, for some reason something had changed and that had her grandpa worried. She wasn't all that worried, there was no way they could defend against a machine that had been designed to fight a superhero that could move so fast that that he could run around the world in less than a second.   
  
Defending against that kind of speed was hard, but the computer on board her hover bike was designed to do just that and give her time to react. There was also something else her grandpa hinted at from time to time, but he'd never explained just what it could be.  
  
She had planned her attack out weeks ago when she thought she would be going in on her bicycle, but now that she had the hover bike available she had to go and make changes to her plans. Doing something like this on short notice would also have been a pain in the ass, but she had been including a secondary plan for the use of all her equipment for the last few missions in case she had them available.   
  
Grandpa insisted she start doing that a few months back and explained it as a kind of training for her mind, to help her think out al the possibilities that might happen. Putting that secondary plan into motion was simplicity itself and it had her excited as well. She would be able to go outside without her disguise for the first time since moving to Keystone City six months before.  
  
She hated wearing this blond wig and would have gotten rid of it long ago if it wouldn't have gotten her grandpa mad at her. It was always getting in her eyes and looked even worse when she woke up in the morning and had to 'repair' it if she had to. She thanked all the gods that he had been backing off on that lately and allowed her to go without the damned thing a little.   
  
Sadly, during the day that wasn't so and she cursed him under her breath and once again pushed the long blond hair out of her eyes as she looked at the plans for the base and once again went over her rout. If her luck held she figured she would be in and out within five minutes since all she had to do was blow a door off one of the buildings at the outer edge of the grounds and remove some rather normal parts from a small box.  
  
"Charlie!"  
  
Charlie sighed as she turned to see her grandpa standing nearby with a glare on his face. "What?"  
  
"It's time for your medicine?"  
  
She turned dead white and backed up several steps. "No! That stuff makes me sick! I don't want to take anymore!"  
  
"Now Charlie." He growled as he held up a small bottle and a needle. "You will need it for tonight's raid."  
  
"No I DON'T!!" She yelled and made a run for the door, but he seemed to phase out of existence and appear right in front of her.   
  
"You will take it Charlie, or else..." He growled. "I've had enough of your screwing around for today, don't make me force you."  
  
"But..."  
  
He held up his fist and it started to spark with electricity sending a wave of energy flaring around his body as he stood there glaring at her with his evil eyes sparking like mad. To Charlie he didn't look like a man anymore, but a deranged parody of a human as the energy seemed to consume his whole body and for brief second electricity seemed to arc out of him in all directions and flare up the walls. Through the whole thing his eyes stayed relatively normal, burning a bright blue as electricity seemed to flow from them and out into the stream of energy all around him.   
  
"Y-yes sir." Charlie gasped as she felt him tense to hit her again.  
  
Within seconds her grandpa was back to normal and he took a second to fill the needle with the amber liquid from the small jar. He sat it down, roughly grabbed her arm, and wrenched it up and to the side so that her veins would stand out a little. It took every bit of control Charlie had not to cry out in pain.   
  
Once a month for over a year this had happened and the only time she really went along with it was the first time he brought it up. She could recall being bed ridden with a high fever for close to a month that first time and suspected that she might have come close to dying. After that the down time had decreased significantly, from a week the second time to just three days the forth time. These days it only kept her bed ridden for a few hours, but the pain she experienced was enough to make her hate the stuff. By the time she weathered the stuff every muscle and nerve in her body hurt like hell.  
  
She winced as the needle went in and she felt the liquid fire flow into her veins. Holding back a whimper of pain she pulled her arm away the instant he pulled the needle out and didn't see his grin as she turned away. The pain was instantly everywhere, setting off every nerve ending in her body with pain and agony. She staggered out of the room and down the hall to her room, barely able to walk and gasping for air as her lungs burned.   
  
The old man walked along behind her calmly watching her progress as she struggled to get her door open with fingers that didn't want to respond. His cold eyes burned into her back as she finally entered her room, slammed the door shut in the old man's face, and collapsed on the bed before finally giving into the pain and curling into a ball.  
  
Out in the hall the old man just continued to grin as he held the little bottle up in front of his eyes and laughed. "If one doesn't succeed the first time, then try; try again and again until you get it right." He muttered to himself as he walked away.  
  
**********  
  
After he had finished teaching classes at the dojo Ranma headed right for the nearest mall and wandered around for a while. He hadn't taken much time to find a decent clothing store and find himself some decent clothes to wear. It only took about twenty minutes to find a pair of black baggy jeans that looked like they could take a beating. Then he stopped at an army surplus store and bought some thin rope. The pants were a little to baggy around his calves so he used the rope to tie it in place and made sure his knees and thighs had plenty of room to move.   
  
The next item on his list was some shirts. He only had enough for a one shirt, so he started looking around for something that would be durable and long lasting no matter what happened to it. Eventually he found what he was looking for, a sleeveless black silk shirt that matched his pants.   
  
Then he stumbled across a pair of black cloth bracers with a golden dragon etched into them that he'd found absolutely fascinating. He checked himself out in the mirror to make sure everything was in place and walked out of the store with a dollar fifty to his name. He vaguely remembered wearing something like it before, but this was as close as he could come to the spotty memories he remembered.   
  
For a little while he considered letting his hair down and letting it hang loose, but then remembered that he kept it in a pony tail just to keep it out of his eyes when he was fighting. He wore the clothes out of the store and ignored the looks the girls were giving him as he walked out the door. He had his old clothes Jay had let him borrow in a bag under his arm as he walked. There was only a little money left over, but he figured he had enough to grab a bite to eat before heading back to Jay's house. With that in mind he headed for the food court thingy to grab some food and relax a little.   
  
He hadn't really bought his clothes to look good, they were more functional than style, but he would have been a bit embarrassed to know that he had a lot of girls looking at him. His messy hair and the tight shirt worn in that way just made him stand out. To the girls anyway, a few stores down from the food court something else was happening that would cause Ranma problems for some time to come. He just had no clue it was coming and no way to avoid it.   
  
Just as he was passing an electronics store Ranma came to a stop when he sensed something dangerous. He looked around and spotted someone way in the back of the store that seemed to be stuck to the wall. The sight was just odd enough to make Ranma wonder what in the world was going on so he stepped into the store and made his way past several displays and book racks. Leaning up against the back wall was one of the employees and he appeared to be stuck in a large block of ice. The only thing not covered in ice was his head and hands.  
  
He tapped the ice a couple of time to make sure it was solid before he punched it. Shattering it to pieces and catching the guy that had been entombed in it. Ranma was almost surprised to see that the guy wasn't dead. He caught him and carefully sat him on the floor before he injured himself. A bit of movement caught his attention and he looked up just as this large guy stepped out of the back room with a bag full of computer parts and a weird looking gun strapped to his arm. It was made out of some silver substance and seemed to mount along his forearm and come to a gun shaped barrel, grip, and trigger that he held in his hand.   
  
"Who the hell are you?" The guy snapped as he took aim with the gun.   
  
Crouched on the floor Ranma realized he had accidentally walked right into a robbery in progress. "&^%$"  
  
The guy smirked. "I agree, cause now you have to die now."   
  
"Yeah right." Ranma mumbled. "I ain't scared of no toy gun."   
  
"This is the latest experimental weapon to be given a trial run." The man said with a slightly insane look in his eyes. "That guy behind you was the first to taste its sting and you can be next hero."  
  
Ranma had already thought of about sixteen ways to take the guy down without hurting him, so he wasn't all that worried. He saw him tense and raise the gun up just a tiny bit to fire at his head. Lashing out, Ranma attacked with a blow to the guy's stomach. It never had a chance to land because the instant it was within an inch of his target this field appeared around him with a loud hum and a shower of sparks. Yelling in shock Ranma found himself several feet away laying back first against a book case. There were books piled all around him as he lay there. He could smell the smoke wafting off his clothes and for an instant he remembered the last time he had been like this.   
  
Then the memory was gone, almost as fast as it had appeared, and he opened his eyes to see the guy smirking at him from a few feet away. Reacting on instinct Ranma rolled out of the way even as the gun fired out a stream of liquid that covered the whole book case. It instantly started to cover the whole wall in a sheet of ice. He came up and used his speed, he felt like he was cheating for some reason. In mid step he vanished from sight and the world around him came to a sudden halt. He was moving so fast that it would take hours, from his point of view, for the criminal to even move an inch. He slowed to a blur and came around behind him and grabbed the gun.   
  
Then he appeared several feet way holding the gun and examining it. He had read quite a bit of Central City's history while going all those books and one of those was about a family that specialized in ice guns. They never had stood much of a chance against The Flash so long as they were caught quickly. He wondered if this was guy from the same family. Ranma knew that if this guy had taken a little while to ice the store before he entered the back room he would have been much harder to catch.   
  
Running on ice was nearly impossible and Ranma didn't want to think about what would happen if he tried it. The guy was just beginning to realize that he had lost his gun as Ranma held it up and crushed it in his hand. A little Ki can go a long ways if used right.  
  
"Missing something?" He asked mildly.  
  
"How?" The guy muttered.  
  
An arc of speed force generated electricity sparked out of Ranma's eyes, around his head and down to his body. The crushed in gun in Ranma's hand sparked and died a couple seconds later. He shot foreword and slammed the guy into the all and knocked him out before he had a chance to pull anything weird out of his costume. He had to admit that he had learned a lot from those books at the library.   
  
Then he watched as the guy slid to the floor and collapsed completely at his feet. There was a bit of smoke coming off Ranma's clothes and realized that he had moved so fast that the friction had come close to setting them on fire. After a couple seconds thought he realized that he had moved at super speed but his clothing hadn't. Just like one of those books he had damaged. He was going to have to do something about that.  
  
With a bit of effort he figured he would be able to run as fast as he wanted in any outfit when he let the speed flow through what he was wearing too. He turned back to the unconscious sales guy and wondered what he should do now. "Geeze the one time I need one of those guys here and they aren't anywhere to be seen." He mutters.  
  
"Who isn't?" Jay asks.  
  
Yelling, Ranma side flipped half way across the room and lands, ready to kick the ass of the person that had just snuck up on him. He sighed loudly when he realizes Jay is the only other person in the room. "Don't scare me like that!"  
  
The old speedster looked around and noticed all the ice. "What happened here?"  
  
"That guy," Ranma said and pointed at the villain "used one of those ice guns to attack this place."   
  
"What did he call himself?"  
  
"He had a name?" Ranma asked. He hadn't even thought about who he was.  
  
"You're supposed to get their name then knock them out."  
  
Ranma laughed nervously. "I hadn't thought about it."  
  
"Also..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"What's with the weird outfit?"  
  
"Just some new clothes." Ranma said with a shrug.  
  
After Jay borrowed the phone and called the police they waited around for about twenty minutes for the Police to show up. Explained what had happened and left the area. Ranma didn't complain too much when Jay took credit for capturing the criminal when they were talking to the Police. He had explained that it wouldn't do to have everyone know that there was another speedster in Keystone right now. They sped out of the mall a few seconds later and headed across town. Jay figured he would have to report the fight to Wally when he had a chance so that they could look into the guns a bit more.  
  
"Did you get a chance to see the Flash Museum while I was away?"   
  
"No, spent a few hours helping at a dojo to make some money." Ranma explained.  
  
Jay just nodded. "Well while we are in the area we might as well drop by. There are a few things I want to show you while we are there."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"You'll see." Jay said with a grin.  
  
They weren't running anywhere near as fast as Ranma had been forcing himself to go earlier at the library, so it only took them a few seconds to reach the museum after they left the mall. About a block from the large red building they came to a stop and Ranma got his first look at the building. It was two stories tall and had a central column rising from the center with a large Flash Lightning Bolt in the center.   
  
Out in front were three large statues, two of which Ranma recognized as they walked towards the building. He instantly noticed that one of the statues was of the man he was walking next to. A little ways away was a statue of Wally West and between the two was a Flash he didn't recognize.  
  
"Who's the third guy there?"  
  
"That is the man that really put the Flash name on the map, as they say. Barry Allen. He knew more about fighting crime and using the speed than anyone alive. Then he gave his life to save the people of this planet and proved what kind of hero he really was."  
  
Ranma was suitably impressed. He could respect anyone that was willing to die for the whole planet. Then he recalled some of the stories he had read while at the library and how some of them must have been talking about this man. "Cool."  
  
"You sound like Impulse."  
  
"So this was the first Flash?" He asked. Ranma still didn't know much about Impulse. They kept mentioning the kid and he was under the impression that he was a handful. He figured he would have to meet the kid at some point and he wasn't sure he wanted to.  
  
"No, I was the first to use the name back in the forties." Jay explained. "When I retired Barry took over as the next Flash and did such a good job that for a time I was completely forgotten about. I didn't mind because I was retired though and he made the name what it is today."  
  
"Are there any other Flash's I need to know about?"   
  
"The Flash legacy has a lot of secrets you don't know about yet Ranma, but we hope to teach them to you one day."  
  
"I'm no hero." Ranma muttered.   
  
"You are more of one than you think. We all noticed after we got to know you better and yesterday when you saved that workman's life you proved it to us."   
  
Ranma laughed and scratched the back of his head. "I just reacted, I wasn't thinking about being a hero or anything."   
  
"That's what I mean. Right now you have mastered the basics of using the speed and if you want you can go home anytime you want. But I would like you to stick around and use your powers for a greater cause." Jay said.  
  
"It's only been a few days. So I don't know."  
  
"Let's head inside and let me tell you a bit more about our history."  
  
"Sure."   
  
As they approached Ranma saw that there were only a few people entering the building. An old man wearing a deep purple uniform and a white shoulder cape tipped his hat at them. Ranma noticed that he had short brown hair going white at the temples. "Morning Jay, tis good to see you again."   
  
"Ranma, this is Dexter Myles, he's the official curator of the museum these days."   
  
"Hello." Ranma said as he tried to look within the building.  
  
"Feel free to look around all you want lad, I can give you a tour if you need it and I'd be more than happy too." Dexter said.  
  
"No thanks Dex, I have a few things I want to show him." Jay said.  
  
"Of course." The old man with a flourish and opened the door them.  
  
Jay led them inside and the first thing they saw was a long hallway full of pictures. He pointed them out and explained the significance of each one. Which battle it depicted and why it had been remembered. Ranma saw numerous pictures of Barry Allen that had been taken by someone named Iris West, but he had never heard of her before. Then Jay led them around the curve of the building and they entered a second hall. Ranma could instantly tell that this hallway was filled with pictures of a different sort.  
  
"This Ranma is the Hall of Villains. The Flash, no matter which one was running around at the time, has always fought a large number of villains. This guy here in the yellow costume and red lightning bolts is Professor Zoom or Eobard Thawne. He is the perfect example of a Flash turned bad. He has killed several times, traveled in time, and even impersonated Barry once.   
  
Some of those that know him think he may have been the most dangerous villain we have ever fought. He didn't care about life as we do. His speed was used for crime and his own personal desires, it corrupted him completely. He has the distinction of being the only villain ever killed by The Flash."  
  
"He was killed?" Ranma asked. He was quite surprised to find that any of these guys had ever taken a life before.  
  
"I was an accident." Jay pointed out.  
  
"It's still quite surprising. What about these guys?" Ranma asked as he pointed to the other pictures. Two different Rogues gallery and lot of solo villains that covered even more space than the Flash's fight wall. As he looked at the pictures he recognized some of the villains that Flash had been fighting.  
  
"As Dexter would say, each and every villain here has their own unique story to tell. Take The Pied Piper here. His real name is Hartley Rathaway and is, to my knowledge one of the few villains to ever go straight and stay that way. There is quite a story behind that and a few other things that Wally has only hinted at to the rest of us. I know him and Wally visit each other every now and then."  
  
They continued on down the hall and entered the next room, this one was big enough to fill over half of the building and it held hundreds of displays. "What are all these things?"   
  
"These are various items that we have collected over the years in the hero business. A wand once used by the Weather Wizard, one of Piper's flutes, even an ice gun used we took from Icicle himself. There are hundreds of little things here that have a history of their own."  
  
As Jay continued the tour and taking the time to tell Ranma about the history of the Flash Legacy two other people were touring the museum. Charlie was dressed in her blond wig and a simple dress as she moved from exhibit to exhibit. Her grandpa stood next to her in his trenchcoat, hat, and cane glaring at everything around them. She kept her distance and at the same time let him know she was there as they looked around.   
  
Her muscles still hurt from the shot he had given her earlier and it would be a few days before she could forgive him for forcing her to go through that kind of pain again. After being in her room for an hour, barely able to move, he had came in and told her to get dressed so they could go out and check out the enemy. His glare was enough to make her get on her feet and get dressed for a day out on the town.  
  
At first she had assumed they would be making a trip over to the Military Base to make a few last minute examinations. She had been quite surprised when they took the bus across the river over into Central City. With a firm grip on her arm he had dragged her into the museum and started to snoop around. Every now and then she would see him place a small circular device on or behind an exhibit before they moved on, but she didn't say anything. She had enough problems as it was and he wasn't in the mood to put up with her today.   
  
"Can you believe all this crap?" He snapped.  
  
"They certainly like to collect trophies don't they?"  
  
"You notice something else?"  
  
"Um…" She muttered.  
  
"I'm not listed anywhere in the museum*." Her Grandpa snapped.   
  
"Oh! Well I'm sure you are around her somewhere."  
  
"I've been here before and looked through everything. They don't even have me listed among the villain's galleries."  
  
"Well you…" She started.  
  
"I will make sure they know my name. By the time I'm done I will be the most dangerous villain they have ever seen." He growled and glared about him like a bear on the prowl. Several of the other museum guests edged away from him nervously. He stalked from display to display for the next couple of minutes making pest of himself.  
  
Charlie watched him out of the corner of her eye as he placed more disks and her curiosity got the better of her. "What are you doing?"  
  
He held up a little disk, almost transparent and grinned at her. "I got these little beauties from an old colleague of mine in the Underground. He owed me a favor and paid me with these and a few other things that I've been installing in your bike."  
  
She looked at the disk blankly. "Cool!"  
  
"We're almost done here. Are you ready to take on your next mission?"  
  
"Yes sir."   
  
"That's good because I don't want anymore mistakes from here on out."  
  
"Yes sir." It was the only thing she could really say when he was in one of his moods. Then she glanced across the room and gasped.  
  
"What is it girl?" Her grandpa snapped.  
  
"That boy over there is the one that I met outside the base yesterday." Charlie said and pointed at Ranma.   
  
The old man turned, froze in his tracks, and started to grind his teeth together as he caught sight of who was standing next to the boy. Charlie paled a little as she got a good look at him moved several steps away from him.   
  
"Garrick." He snarled under his breath.   
  
"C-calm down grandpa." She said nervously and winced as his eyes started to spark.  
  
"It's time to go Charlie." He snarled and stalked out of the room making several people jump out of his way. His trenchcoat fluttered around him like a living thing as he walked. His anger seemed to be radiating off him in waves as he moved.  
  
Charlie followed after him a few seconds later and watched the old man that had set her grandfather off like that out of the corner of her eye. She didn't recognize him, but it was obvious that her grandfather did know the guy from somewhere. As she walked out of the room she had to run so that she could catch up. He had already walked out of the building and left her behind.  
  
She caught up with him about a block away. "Where are you going?"  
  
"Home!" He yelled.  
  
"Then let's catch the bus."  
  
"I want to walk!"  
  
"Yes sir." She squeaked.  
  
**********  
  
As Ranma was led around the museum Jay took the time to explain every exhibit they came across. Ranma noticed as they advanced through each section that it would be devoted to one of the superhero speedsters. The first and biggest in the main hall was devoted to Barry Allen and his amazing carrier as a hero. Then had been a room devoted to Jay himself.   
  
He had learned the most from that room because the stories Jay told were more detailed and gave him a better understanding of the history of the man himself. After that they had entered the Wally West wing. It was almost as big as the Barry Allen wing, but seemed to center around a smaller group of villains that he had to fight more often. Ranma wandered over to a case that he had noticed in the Barry Allen wing as well and looked at a set of yellow and red rings sitting majestically on bed of white felt.   
  
"What are these things for?"  
  
"Those are special rings. Barry and Wally used to wear them all the time. They contain costumes for them to wear when they needed to appear as The Flash." Jay explained.  
  
"How the heck does a costume fit in something so tiny?"  
  
"They are super compressed inside the ring. Barry invented them early in his carrier." Jay said.  
  
"Do you have one?"  
  
"Yes, but I never use it. It's at home in one of my drawers."  
  
"Doesn't that make it hard for you to keep your identity safe?"   
  
Jay laughed. "Not at all, I learned how to blur the features of my face a long time ago. That way no one can recognize me when I'm in costume."  
  
Ranma looked a little confused.  
  
"Like this." Jay said and pointed at this face.   
  
Almost instantly Ranma's eyes lost focus on Jay's face and he couldn't make out any of the details. "That's amazing."  
  
"Well it's a good trick, but I'm the only one that hides their identity this way. The others all wear masks to hide their looks."  
  
"I also wanted to know about these shoes you gave me."  
  
"They were designed by Star Labs several years ago when Wally started to go through a pair of shoes. Sometimes more than one pair a day. Regular shoes are not designed to withstand the kind of friction that seems to go along with running at high speed. Even our clothing will be ripped to shreds if we run around in them if we aren't lucky. When we run we produce a kind of speed field around us that allows us to ignore the effects of friction, but there are still some effects that happen over time.   
  
That's another reason for the costumes we wear. They are designed to withstand the friction that gets through the speed field while we run. Impulse tends to run around all the time and can't make an outfit last longer than week before it starts to look a little frayed at the edges."  
  
"Then I'm gonna have to get something a little more durable than this?" Ranma asked as he indicated his clothing.  
  
"It would be a good idea."   
  
"Yay, now I need more money."   
  
"Joan and I can help you out a little, but I think it would be a good idea for you to get a job. If you do start helping us out you will need to wear one of the uniforms though."  
  
"One of those spandex one?"  
  
Jay nodded. "Yeah, though there is a reason for those too."  
  
Ranma sighed. He really didn't like hokey costumes. "What would that be? As far as I can tell they just hide who you are and make you look silly."  
  
"They aren't that bad Ranma," Jay said and laughed a little. "…though I have to admit that I've seen some costumes that border on the ridiculous."  
  
"So what are they for exactly?"  
  
"A costume protects you from the villains you fight."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"If a villain knows who you are then they can track you down and threaten your friends and family. Some villains wouldn't even hesitate to kill your best friend or your father just to get back at you for defeating them." Jay explained, and then stopped as Ranma grabbed his head and groaned in pain. "Ranma are you alright?"  
  
The instant Jay had said the word father Ranma had felt a tingling sensation start at the base of his spine and spread out from there. His head started to pound as memories of some kind started to flash through his head of a shadowy monster of some kind. There was no rhyme or reason to the visions as they appeared in a completely random order.   
  
He suddenly found that he could remember the monster beating him up day after day for years. There were images of him being tossed off the top of houses, through walls, and even forcing him to fight against men far bigger than he was and fully expecting him to win. Even as he staggered a little and had to steady himself on the wall he remembered a name that filled him with conflicting emotions.   
  
"Genma." He muttered.  
  
"Ranma?!" Jay asked again as he tried to get the boy's attention.  
  
"I'm….alright, now." Ranma said as he shook his head. "Just a memory."  
  
"Of what? You nearly collapsed in the middle of the floor."   
  
"My…teacher I think."  
  
"Teacher?" Jay asked in confusion.  
  
"I think his name was Genma." Ranma explained. "I can remember him teaching me things over the years. How to throw a hundred punches in ten seconds or less, or how to shatter stone with my bare hands and not break any of my bones. I can even remember him teaching me how to fall by throwing me off two and three story buildings in my sleep. There are too many memories to explain them all."  
  
"They must not be very pleasant memories."   
  
"No they aren't." Ranma said as he shook off the dizziness.  
  
"I think we need a break. Want to go and grab something to eat?" Jay asked as he decided to ask about the memories later. Wally still didn't quite believe that Ranma had lost his memories after entering the Speed Force.   
  
"I'm always up for food." Ranma said and smirked as his stomach growled.  
  
"I see. Well then lets go and get something from this place just down the road." Jay said as he started walking out of the museum.  
  
"Where are we going?" Ranma asked.  
  
"To say goodbye to Dexter and then we can go and grab a bite to eat."  
  
"Sounds good to me." Ranma said and followed after him.  
  
They took a second to say good buy to the old curator and stepped out into the sunlight. Ranma looked around and noticed that they had been inside the building for quite a while. Then took off after Jay as he took off down the street so fast that he almost instantly vanished, but by this time Ranma was beginning to get the hang of using his speed at an instants notice and was soon on his heels. They flew down several streets and headed across the city and Ranma realized that close by to a speedster kind of depended on how far they wanted to run. He wasn't really paying attention to the people around him as he dodged around them.  
  
So he missed the odd look the two of them got as they went around Charlie and her grandpa a little while later. Charlie had to restrain her grandpa as he snarled and reached inside his coat to pull something out. By the time he started cursing at the top of his lungs Ranma and Jay were several blocks away and dodging through traffic. They came to a stop in front of a fast food place and Ranma glanced up at the sign and noticed a large red and yell lightning bolt sign.  
  
"What the hell is this place?"  
  
"A friend of mine owns this place. He's been feeding speedsters for the last couple of decades."  
  
"I don't see a name anywhere."  
  
Jay laughed and pointed at the sign. "That's the name. The Lightning Bolt Café."  
  
"Oh." Ranma muttered.   
  
"Well let's grab some food and we can discuss the next part of your training."  
  
That made Ranma perk up a bit. He had been thinking of the different ways he might be able to use his new speed ever since he took that guy down at the mall. "What do I have to learn next?"  
  
"Well one of the first things a speedster learns is how to phase through objects by vibrating his way through them."  
  
"Cool!" Ranma said as Jay opened the door to the café.  
  
"Yep, Barry was the first one to figure out how to do it and got quite good at it. Wally on the other hand seems to have a problem with it."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"We don't know. He used to do it all the time and it's part of the skills that all speedsters use, but ever since he entered the speed force he hadn't been able to do it."  
  
"Does that mean that I wont' be able to either?"  
  
"I'm not sure if you can or not. I think Wally just has problems doing certain things with his speed. He's had problems for years. He's even lost his powers on more than one occasion. At least three or four times that I'm aware of, but there might be more that he never mentioned."  
  
"Bah, I'll out do him by the end of the week." Ranma said as he looked around the café. "So what's for dinner?"  
  
Jay laughed. "Let's get a couple of pizzas before we head home."  
  
"Alright." Ranma said as they walked over to a table in the corner.  
  
**********  
  
It was time.  
  
The sun would be setting in a matter of hours and Charlie knew that next few hours would either make her or break her. In her closet was a plastic wrapped costume that her grandfather had bought through an underground criminal organization that worked in the Keystone underground tunnels. They were a shadowy group of men and woman that she didn't know very much about, but they tended to encourage high profile crimes and villains to attack the city whenever they had a chance.   
  
Her grandfather had only mentioned the Network in passing and even then seemed to a little scared of them. They had provided him with certain items that were almost impossible to get though normal channels. This had allowed him to speed up the manufacturing of her hover bike and it's special systems. She pulled her costume out of the closet, took the plastic wrap off, and sat it on her bed with care.   
  
The costume, which was a glossy black with bright silver trim, had been designed with several special enhancements that would allow her to fight any of the speedsters in Keystone or Central City. It was the one requirement that her grandpa insisted on because of his past. She quickly stripped out of her clothes and tossed her blonde wig on the bed so that she could begin to get dressed.   
  
The first item she picked up was a skin tight black armored spandex body suit that went on first. It had to be carefully pulled into position to allow her the freedom of movement she would require in a combat situation. Once it was in place she looked in the mirror to see that she was covered from her neck clear down to her ankles.   
  
Her grandpa had sat her down and spent hours telling her stories about the various speedsters and their powers. How if she was ever punched by a speedster she would be killed instantly. Drilling her for hours to defend herself against everything he could think of. That was where the armor came in handy. It was designed to withstand blows that could break her into little pieces. It even gave her a strength advantage by almost quintupling her own physical strength and speed.  
  
The boots came next, a special design that had been developed by Star Labs for their own security forces. They were a slightly refined version of the typically military boot with a couple of added pieces that her grandpa had included. He had placed a small pen laser inside the boot next to her ankle for an emergency.   
  
After that she picked up her silver and black gun belt and put it on. Taking a second to make sure the holsters were tied to her legs and didn't move around. The empty holsters stood out a bit, but she needed to get her guns from her grandpa before she left.  
  
From the belt she opened a side pouch and pulled out a small lead and plugged it into her suit. After a couple of seconds the suit warmed up and constricted around her to lend a bit of support to several areas on her body. It also hardened those areas to make it impossible for anyone to accidentally harm her in the middle of a fight.   
  
After that she put on a pair gloves attached to a thick silver arm band that contained a couple of weapons that would come in handy while she was out on a mission. They had a little section that ran down the back of the armband that stood up a little when she placed her hand in a certain position and could fire a small chemical pellet developed by her grandpa.   
  
It took a second to find, but she tapped a small button on the back of the bracer. Activating the second power source for the suit and plugged a second lead from the glove into the bracer. She felt her suit constrict a little tighter to give her even more protection. Once these were in place she took out a small ear piece and attached it to her ear.   
  
She took a few minutes to strut around the room and settle the costume into place. One of the last items she grabbed was a pair of goggles. They had the same features as pair she had worn while on her first mission. But these were more streamlined and had a few other options that hadn't been available until recently. A small wire on the earpiece plugged into the goggles and activated the final part of her costume as she pulled it over her eyes.   
  
A small LED screen appeared in front of her eyes as she ran a lead to the ear piece and started running a scan on the microfilament systems woven within the costume. She read through all the little indicators telling her that the costume was in perfect working order. The only thing she was missing were the readings on her guns. After a quick look in the mirror to adjust her spiky green hair she turned and walked out of the room. She headed for the garage where her grandpa was waiting for her as he made the final adjustments on the hover bike.   
  
"It's about time you finished getting dressed!" He snapped.  
  
"I had to make sure everything still worked." She explained as she walked into the garage.  
  
"Whatever. The bike is as ready as it can get without these final pieces you are stealing."  
  
  
  
Charlie nodded. She knew this already and it was boring hearing it from him for the tenth time in less than an hour. "Yes sir."  
  
"Your guns are fully charged and on the counter over there." He informed her and pointed them out to her.  
  
As she picked them up let the costume's systems recognize them. The little LED screen changed to show the guns and tell her that they were in perfect working order. She spun them around in her hands a few times and holstered them. The electronics inside the belt would keep them charged constantly and even recharge them in about ten minutes once she used up all the power. She was pretty sure she wouldn't be needing them, but it felt good to have them there just in case.  
  
She climbed on the hover bike and tapped the start button. It revved to life as the hover jets kicked in and lifted it about a foot off the ground. "Running pre-flight check." She said into her microphone."  
  
"The microphone is working perfectly." Her grandfather said.  
  
"Excellent!!"  
  
"Charlie!"   
  
"Call me Kid Rocket!" She yelled as she flipped a switch on the dashboard and the garage door opened up and she flew out in a swirl of dust.  
  
She rose slowly into the darkening sky and performed a couple of quick turns and rolls to make sure everything was working. Her boots were hooked into the bike and allowed her to suit to monitor the bike exactly like it watched over all her equipment. With the flip of a small toggle switch she brought up a map of the city on her LED screen and indicated the Military base. The screen fuzzed for a second before it seemed to zoom in on her target. The location was automatically uploaded to the bike and it rocketed right for it.   
  
A lot of the bike's functions were automatic so she didn't have to do much except hang on and enjoy the ride. She would take over once she got close enough to the base to see it. From there it would just take a few minutes for her to launch a few tricks, get inside the storage building and take what she wanted. Within minutes she flew over a freeway and deactivated the autopilot.   
  
She turned the bike and dove down towards the ground and entered the canal. There was only a little water in the canal and she sent up a mist of water behind her as she skimmed the surface of the water. She made her way through a small maze of twists and turns until she came out along the edge of the Military Base at the edge of Keystone City.  
  
By this time the sun was almost all the way down the guards at the base were all tired from a hard day of work from rebuilding the base and parts of the city. According to her time tables over half of the men wouldn't return from the city for another hour. That would give her more than enough time to get in and out of the place before they returned. The LED brought up a second image of the base and indicated a building near the center of the base with a small arrow.  
  
That was her goal. All she needed to do was incapacitate about two hundred soldiers with her weapons. She grinned and toggled the bike over to manual control. "Grandpa, I have arrived at the base."  
  
"Good. Now proceed with that plan I laid out for you and get back here."  
  
"Yes sir." She said, still a little ticked that he wouldn't let her use her own revised plan.  
  
The bike responded flawlessly as she rose into the air, hit another switch and started speeding right for the front gates. Suddenly the air around the bike was started to hum as several hidden weapons snapped out and sent a couple dozen pellets flying at the guard gate.   
  
"YAGHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" She screamed.  
  
The guards had just enough time to bring their guns to bare before they were hit by the small chemical pellets. She flew over the gate at around a hundred miles per hour and just grinned at the guards. They weren't moving at all, standing there as if they were nothing but a bunch of dolls. Another toggle switch activated the automatic firing system and it started to fire out three pellet bursts at the approaching soldiers.  
  
Within seconds the whole base started to come to life as emergency sirens began to wail and soldiers ran out of houses and barracks, perfect targets for her weapons even if they didn't know it.  
  
**********  
  
To Be Continued...  
  
End Notes -   
  
*The old man really is mentioned in the online Flash Museum that I found on the Web http://www.hyperborea.org/flash/museum.html. I'm just not going to say who he is until chapter three or four. That and I've been playing around with his history a bit because I wasn't aware of recent events in The Flash and JSA. I'll be touching on certain areas that people have pointed out to me so he won't come off too different from the Cannon information.  
  
**********  
  
Omake: Two  
  
"Call me Kid Rocket!" Charlie yelled as she flew out of the garage and rose into they air. She flipped a couple of buttons and the bike wobbled in the air, nearly throwing her off. Was this why the old man had told her to wear the weird looking back pack?  
  
Down below the old man held up his remote control device he'd installed to make sure the bike went where he wanted it to go. He tapped a button and moved the controls and the bike shot straight up.   
  
Charlie screamed as she held on for dear life.  
  
He grunted and flipped a toggle and tapped another button and frowned as the hover bike suddenly started to fall and he heard the girl scream again. Then he thumped the control and the bike suddenly strafed the freeway.  
  
"Blasted substandard parts." He muttered. "Maybe I should have added in those balloons after all?"   
  
"AGHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" Charlie screamed as she suddenly flew behind her grandpa and ended up in a tree next to the garage.  
  
"I guess it still needs a few adjustments." The old man grumped.   
  
Charlie fell out of the tree and landed on her back with a thump. Her parachute suddenly burst out of her backpack and dragged her down the driveway until it caught on a nearby tree. She whipped around, lifted off the ground, and slammed into the roof of the house.   
  
"What the hell! &%$#!&" She yelled. "Ouch! I'm gonna get sick."  
  
"Get off your lazy ass and help get the bike out of the tree!" The old man yelled as he pulled her off the roof with the ropes attached to the backpack.  
  
"&%$# you!"  
  
Thump!  
  
"Ow!" Charlie yelled from the ground.  
  
"Oops, my hand slipped."   
  
*****  
  
Omake three: The Disclamer files  
  
Normal Disclamers are done at the start of fan written works but this time around I figured that putting all six of the Disclamers down at once would make a great short omake, I thought up some funny ones and some cheesey one so feel the bong.  
  
*****  
  
(1)  
  
Disclamer: I own all of this pay me.... BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I own all show me the money. I.... Rosewood what are you doing with that mallet.... Ouch.... AH.... mother.... don't hit me with that bat.... NO, not there... help.  
  
*****  
  
(2)  
  
Disclamer: We don't own any thing but Kid Rocket and a guy named Bryan. All charater other than them are own by their respective owners... And I wouild say this even if Rosewood wasn't standing behind me with a base ball bat.  
  
*****  
  
(3)  
  
Michael points upwards. "Look, up in the sky!"  
  
Rosewood asks "Hey, its that a bird, or a plain?"  
  
Michael turns his head to the side and says, "No thats a disclamer!"  
  
*****  
  
(4)  
  
I said I didn't want any mustard on my disclamer... darn it now I can't use it.  
  
*****  
  
Omake five: Christmas story...Omake style.  
  
By BlindmanX  
  
It twas the night before Christmas,  
  
And Ranma ran scared threw the house,  
  
Away from the sight of a cat chasing a mouse,  
  
("What's his problem?" Tom asked Jerry to which Jerry just shrugged for a moment and then kept running.)  
  
The Christmas stocking were hung by the chimney with care,  
  
Which lasted a second as Ranma ran past there,  
  
With the bang, all the noise and the crashing, Jay and his wife awoke from hearing the clatter and rushed down stairs to see what was the matter.  
  
Ranma was hung upside down tied to the tinsle with a rapper,  
  
Joan, Jay's wife asked "What's the matter?"  
  
Ranma fumed with himself as he thought of his plight. "What a weird chrismas... how did I get tied down so tight?"  
  
The end.  
  
^__^ 


	4. Chapter 03

oooooooooo  
Sudden Burst of Speed  
Chapter 03  
Cory D. Rose -  
BlindmanX -  
(c) 2005  
ooooooooooo

Gotham City, home to every psychopath, criminal, and gangster in a hundred mile radius. Of course the Batman is the most famous name to come out of Gotham City even though he isn't a criminal, just a vigilante. He rarely let anyone see him in the light and even then it was usually at the end of some alley cloaked in shadows.

In one part of the city, Star Lab stood proud in early morning darkness, a small dark shadow swung from a nearby building and landed on the roof of the five story building without making a sound. Years of practice made Batman the master of this particular skill. He knelt in the shadows on the roof, his glowing white eyes watching everything around him for any sign of trouble.

He preyed on criminals by making them fear him and what he represented, controlling the crime rate with his fists on a nightly basis. Gliding silently across the roof he pulled a little tool from his belt as he neared the roof access door. This wasn't the first time he ever came to this particular building, he was here at least once every couple of months, so within seconds he was inside.

Star Labs was a large outfit with labs in cities across the continent, but they had an unhealthy habit. They employed scientists that used Star Labs to create monstrous things. Most of these seemed to happen in Metropolis, but weird things always seemed to pop up when Star Labs was involved. He didn't trust them to keep their noses clean, not after he found one of their employees setting mutated animals loose on the city.

Just to see what would happen. Twelve dead, four of them homeless, three of the cops, the rest were children who wanted to pet the animals. After that mess he swore they would never get away with it again even if he had to police the scientists himself.

His movements couldn't really be tracked as he glided silently through the upper halls of the building. As usual security was light and unobservant. He used the ceiling to follow a guard that was walking down the hallway. An armed guard and it was quite obvious that the man had no clue what he was doing. Batman watched as the guard stopped at every door and made sure it was locked. This one was open and he didn't appear to surprised as he entered the room.

Batman dropped to the floor behind the man and stepped inside before jumping back to the ceiling. The guard went through the motions as he turned on the lights and made check of the room, then left without turning around after he turned out the lights.

He dropped silently from the ceiling the instant the door was shut. His cape flaring out around him to slow his fall. His white eyes shining in the darkness as he moved across the room like a shadow until he was standing in front of the computer he needed. After several visits he'd found this room was the least guarded and the easiest to gain access too. He'd have to let Star Labs know about it some time.

Security guards tended to be quite predictable so Batman knew he had twenty five minutes to himself before any of the guards returned to check on the room again. They were to predictable at times. So he was familiar with the way they worked and knew the computer would have the information he required. On his first visit several months before he took the liberty to upload a couple of watch dog programs.

The same program that alerted him to a possible crime in the making, in one of the labs a few floors down. Reaching into his belt he pulled a small disk, opened the disc reader, and loaded it into the computer. Within seconds the this second program swept through the system retrieving the information he wanted. Reaching into his belt he pulled a small wire out and plugged it into the speaker.

Several seconds later he tapped a couple buttons and a small screen in front of his left eye flared to life. A digital recording of a crime was soon playing in front of his eye. He watched in silence looking at every detail he could see, cataloging every fact, clue, and possible slip the thief may have made. It helped that he knew what he was looking for, so it was easy enough to spot.

Just days before a thief had broken into the lab and stole some rare chemicals for one of the mob bosses. He never made it out of the building. The cops had him in custody even as he was exiting the building. Batman hadn't even showed up to help them because the thief was that incompetent.

He tapped a button and paused the tape and starred at the scene a little closer and wondered if he would have to take this back to the bat cave for a more thorough scan. Then he spotted it, Batman watched the tape as carefully as he could, and knew that if this wasn't a digital recording he would never have spotted it.

There, just in the background, a blur stood just behind the original thief as the man gathered up the chemicals. Batman could tell, now at least, that the thief was a distraction and made a note to ask Gordon about the man. He had a feeling that the thief wouldn't be where everyone thought he was.

The blur effect could almost be mistaken for a distortion in the recording, but this was a digital recording and that kind of thing couldn't happen. Batman didn't like what he was seeing at all and that blur reminded him way to much of another hero from the Justice League. It also reminded him of a group of people that could cause havoc throughout the world if they set their minds to it. They were to dangerous not to watch.

'So... more than one person at the scene.' He thought to himself and tried to clean up the image, but there was only so much he could do on the inferior equipment. His eyes narrowed slightly as he considered the implications of the find. There was only one place he could find the answers he needed as well, Keystone City, home of The Flash.

The only problem was The current Flash wasn't a criminal scientist like Barry Allen was during his time, so things like this were rarely discovered until well after the fact. He wondered if he should even bring this to Wally's attention or just investigate it himself? Batman knew that Wally could do the job and had the experience. Batman found himself cut from this thought as the door knob turned and a guard he'd never seen before walked into the room.

"These new ground sweeps are killing me Frank."

"Going to the can tires you out, Joe." Frank muttered with a laugh as he ran a flashlight over the room to do a surprise check of the room.

"Humph!"

Frank, the typical overweight guard, entered the empty room behind the first guard "It can't be helped after the break in and the new funding Wayne Tech threw into this place. We got to expect stuff like this." Frank said as they exited the room and continued their seach, never seeing the shadow leaving the room above their heads.

"It does break up the bordom a little, but we are doing way to much walking."

"Oh shut up and do your job, moron."

Batman watched them from the ceiling. He wasn't surprised to see them checking the room earlier than expected, but they hadn't even bothered to turn on the lights this time. Extremely sloppy. He touched reached for his utility belt and tapped a button as he made his way out of the room and headed for the roof.

Above the building, the Batwing came to a stop and hovered over the edge of the roof as Batman jumped to the plane, walked along the wing, and got into the pilots seat as the access hatch closed silently. He spent a few seconds to check over the controls to make sure everything was in working order. He loaded his disk into the computer and transferred all the data he'd just taken to the bat computer.

As he was about the leave for home since this was his final stop of the night, his finger gripping the acceleration controls, when the Police emergency channel squawked. "Man down, Man down... We're under fire by an unknown hostile. I say again, we are under attack by an unknown hostile... Man down!"

His eyes narrowed as he brought up a map of Gotham and pin pointed where the police were. The batwing lifted into the sky and shot across the city. His trip to Keystone would have to wait until he took care of the problem.

He reached out and tapped a button. "Jon."

"Batman." The Martian Manhunter answered from his watch of the JLA satellite.

"Connect me to Flash."

"One second…you're connected."

"Flash, this is Batman."

Wally came to a stop at the edge of a beach covered with half naked women and pulled out his JLA card as it beeped. "What's up, Bats?"

"There is something going on in Keystone."

"And?"

"I'll be arriving sometime tomorrow."

Breaking into relatively slow run, for him, Wally shot across the water with a small tower of water rising up behind him. "What kind of problem was it?"

"Gotham Star Labs was broken into a few days ago, the police have been looking into a number of chemical thefts, and the security tapes at Star Labs managed to get some pictures of a super fast blur. Not enough to get a good look, but enough to point in your direction."

"Thanks I'll…" Flash started, but Batman had already cut the signal. "Typical."

oooooooooo

"I need to check something out at the Military base Ranma." Jay said as the little police radio he carried around told him of the attack.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"Someone is attacking the Military Base and several of the soldiers at the gate are down."

"They can't handle it themselves?" Ranma asked and sounded a little surprised. "They are the military after all."

"Naw, the base is spread pretty thin right now because of all the reconstruction going on." Jay explained. "Kobra's device caused a lot of damage and it will be years before we recover completely."

"I thought we took care of all that yesterday?"

"Just the simple things that we could do with our speed, the rest of it has to be taken care of the normal way."

"Oh." Ranma said and shrugged.

They quickly paid their bill at the café and headed outside. Jay looked at Ranma just as he was about to leave. "Do you want to go back to the house and wait for me to get back? You haven't really had to deal with anything like this yet."

"I'll come along with you. I need to see how these things work and it is part of my training." Ranma said.

"Alright then, follow me and don't get left behind." Jay said as he shot off down the street. He was running even faster than Ranma was used to.

They quickly reached speeds that were impossible for the human eye to see. Ever since he had finished all that reading just a few hours ago he had developed a new level of respect for just how fast he could move now, but these old men were constantly surprising him.

With just a little effort he could outrun the fastest car on the road and leave it in the dust, but these old men just made him look like an armature. As a novice Ranma figured he had quite a bit to learn about his speed, but he just got a thrill out of dodging around all the things that were in his way. He had to be super careful with his new abilities or someone would get hurt.

Just a little side step to either side and he could dodge his way around all the people and cars that were in his way. It was one of the most basic moves and it came to him almost instinctively as he followed Jay through the streets. Ranma was a bit galled to see that Jay was quickly starting to outrun him even as they raced across the bridge and entered Keystone City again.

He only started to slow down as they neared the Military Base. Jay pointed ahead of him as they approached. "Look at that."

Ranma glanced ahead of them and saw a small column of black smoke rising into the air. "Is that the base?"

"Yes, so we need be careful. Something is on fire over there and whatever set it off could still be there."

"Alright."

"Save the people first. Get them out of the way before we even try to stop whoever did that. Lives are more important than any criminal that might be around."

Ranma nodded. He understood that protecting the innocents came before anything else, it was the Code. He wanted to mention something about a code, but he couldn't recall what the code was in the first place. So he shrugged it off.

They curved around several blocks before they turned one last corner and Ranma realized that they had just started to run down the road that led to the main entrance to the base. The first thing they saw as they came to a stop was that the main gate was still closed.

Next to the gate however were four men with their rifles raised to shoot at something in the air. What caught Ranma's attention was that none of them had moved an inch when they arrived. They hadn't even lowered their guns.

"What in the world happened to them?" He asked.

"I'm not sure. It looks like someone wanted to get into the base without causing any harm. They appear to be stuck like this. I'm pretty sure I know what did this and it will wear off in a few hours."

"Are they even alive?" Ranma muttered. The frozen soldiers were giving him the creeps. They were like life like statues with loaded weapons.

"Yeah, they are still breathing." Jay said after making quick diagnosis. "We need to get inside and see if we find whoever did this. If you see any colored gas floating around along the ground, avoid it or you'll end up like se poor guys."

"Are they safe like this?"

"For now, but we need to hurry if we want to save them." Jay said as he looked at the gate. "I have to get inside. Find another way in if you can."

Ranma watched in a bit of shock as Jay ran 'through' the gate in a burst of electricity. He walked over, rested his hand against it, and found that it was completely solid. "How in the world did he do that?"

He glanced up at the top of the gate, crouched, and jumped over the gate without really trying. His foot touched down on the other side and he looked around for Jay, but he was nowhere in sight. What he did see were several people frozen in place along the sidewalks and even in the middle of the road. Several of them, like the other guys, had weapons drawn and were pointing them at the sky. He glanced around again and saw some movement near the middle of the base.

His aura flared around him like a wave of electricity and he started to run towards the disturbance. Even at his current speed he could see that the red and blue blur was removing several people from a burning truck and placing them against the wall of a nearby building. Ranma counted over a twenty men who were about to be engulfed in the flames form the truck and he raced in to lend a hand.

Within less than a second the two of them managed to save all the men from the fire. Jay stopped in front of the burning truck and started to concentrate as he held his hand out. Then he suddenly pulled his hand back and Ranma could literally see the air being pulled away from the fire around the truck. Jay then thrust his hand forward, sent a wave of air at the truck, and blew the fire out like a candle.

"Cool!" Ranma said a he came to a stop next to Jay.

"Heh, I've still got a trick or two left." Jay said. "Now we need to find the person that did this."

"Over there I think." Ranma said as he pointed at a building down the street.

There was something sitting on the ground right outside and old storage building of some kind. The large front door was wide open and they could see a flashlight flickering around inside the building. Before they could even run over and check things out a form came out of the pulling something so heavy that it was being dragged on the ground. Then the person stumbled and dropped whatever the thing was on their foot.

"Well from the sound of the voice that's a girl." Ranma said.

"Indeed. Let's go and see what she wants from that building." Jay said as he shot forward.

Shrugging, Ranma followed him at a slightly slower pace. They came to a stop several yards from the girl as she finished attaching the heavy object to the side of her bike. Ranma was close enough to see that she had managed to take several other things as well.

"Stop right there girl." Jay said as he walked forward and into the light created by the girl's flashlight.

She stopped and looked up at him suddenly. "Ah &#!"

"Who might you be?" Jay asked mildly. "And watch your language, you're to young to be cussing like that."

"Call me Kid Rocket and I'm just here borrow some parts." She said as she stood up and ran hand through her spiky green hair.

"Kid Rocket?" Ranma muttered and rolled his eyes. What was it with these people and lame superhero names?

"The police are already on their way girl, just put those things down and we talk about this peacefully." Jay said.

The girl snorted. "Yeah right, I know how you people work. FLARE!"

Something on the front of the bike suddenly exploded into a miniature sun and something told Ranma to dive to the side. When he came back to his feet the miniature sun was lifting into the sky and he could hear the girl laughing as she rocketed out of the area and vanished into the sky. He rubbed his eyes as he came to his feet and his sight slowly came back.

"You alright Ranma?" Jay asked as he knelt down on the ground and picked up a small box the girl had dropped.

"Yeah, but that light got me." Ranma muttered. He was still seeing spots in front of his eyes.

"Me too and I should have known better. Ah well, win some and lose some."

"We'll get her next time." Ranma said. "What did you find?"

"A clue, but I'm not sure if it's a good one or not." Jay explained as he handed the box to Ranma. "What do you think of this?"

Ranma took the box and looked it over. "What am I supposed to be seeing?"

"It's from Wayne Tech Enterprises in Gothom City." Jay explained. "I'm a bit surprised to see it here in this old building. Wayne Tech tends to deal in very advanced technology."

"So it's out of place among all this old stuff?" Ranma asked and pointed at the storage building with his thumb.

"Exactly."

"Do you think talking to the Military could help us find that girl?"

Jay shook his head. "I doubt that, but I think we may be able to find out what those parts can be used for. I'll need to call in a favor to find out though."

"Cool." Ranma said as he handed the box back. They waited for the military police to show up before they left the area and headed home. It took another three hours for the frozen soldiers to unfreeze and they couldn't remember anything except some kind of gas bomb. They were all taken into the military hospital to be looked over.

oooooooooo

The old man frowned as he walked back to the house with a handful of mail in his hands. Even though he was using the house as a kind of staging point to set his plans in motion, he still had to pay bills on the stupid thing. Grumbling a little he quickly sorted the bills, junk mail, and checks he'd received. To him it was a necessary evil, but one he would like to do without. He had better uses for his hard earned money.

He looked up as he sensed something and watched as his grand daughter's flying bike came in for a landing from the window. He was glad the thing had a small cloaking device on it so that people couldn't spot it from the ground. Unless you knew what to look for anyway.

Kid Rocket leaned back and fired the thrusters as she brought the bike around, sending a wave of dust and leaves away from the bike. It leveled out into a hover as the garage door opened and she quickly landed inside. He grunted as the door shut behind her. The girl had skills, but she was still to young for this kind of thing. Luckily she wouldn't be doing it for very much longer, she just didn't know it yet.

She liked to show off at the most inappropriate times. He made his way back to the house just in case someone was following her. "Charle!"

"I'm back, Grandpa!" She yelled from the garage.

He quickly made his way over to the door to the garage and stepped out. "You did remember to use the Cloak on the way back here didn't you?"

"Yes Grandpa. I ran into a couple of the speedsters while grabbing the items from the military base. I had to make sure they didn't follow me."

He stared at her for a few seconds. "Who did you run into, girl?"

Charlie dismounted from the bike and quickly removed her helmet, coat, and most of her equipment. Her spiky green hair was slightly slicked back from sweat. "That old speedster you don't like and the new boy."

"Garrick?"

"Yeah, him."

"Any others? Or just those two?"

"Just them. They caught me right as I was coming right out of the building, but I used the Flare light on the bike. Managed to get away before they could capture me and I don't think they expected me to resist them."

"And the equipment?"

"Right where you said it was." She said as she pulled it out of a storage box on the side of the bike and handed it to him. "Here you go."

He took the box and quickly opened it to several small items. "Excellent work Charlie."

She grinned. "No problem, it was way easy."

"With this we should be able to get your hover bike up to full speed now."

"Oh I hope so! I can't wait to use it again. This thing is amazing!"

The old man laughed. "Well you go get cleaned up. I'm going to start making the alterations on these parts. You should be ready for the next theft here pretty soon. Maybe even tonight or tomorrow."

Charlie nodded as she dashed out of the garage and headed for her room. She didn't see the glare the old man sent at her as she ran off. Instead she only had one thing on her on her mind, a shower and a change of clothes.

He waited till he heard the shower running before he walked over to the counter and dumped the contents of the box out on the counter. The military, as with most large forces, tended to make the same mistakes. They were always looking for the next update or new weapon and forgetting about the items that were replaced. They were all fools.

He held up a small clear bottle with a grey powder in it and grinned. "Telaxia compound. I thought I'd never have to see this cursed substance again."

Setting that to the side, he picked up the box with the computer chips in it and reached for his tool box. He would need a couple of hours to get the Telaxia ready for use and the sooner that was done the sooner Charlie could be sent back out for her final mission.

That meant he had to get her hover bike updated and ready for another flight. For the next several hours he worked, slowly, and methodically with the kind of patience that only an old man could achieve. As soon as he was finished he was ready to insert three computer cards into the bike. He glanced at the bottle of Telaxia again to make sure it was there before he started on the bike.

He quickly inserted the cards into the computer core below the seat with no problems. The computer automatically started to upload all the new information from the cards, quickly updating it's systems and activating several others that weren't ready. Several gauges across the dash lit up as they came to life.

Moving back over to the counter he looked at the little bottle again. It was the one thing that his plans hinged on, and if he wanted to complete it in a timely fashion, it needed to be refined a little. Even the military wouldn't keep refined Telaxia compound sitting around unless they wanted to blow up the building where it was stored. The substance, created by an old, and long dead, superhero back in the twenties was one of those wonder substances.

It could be used as a fuel, a weapon, almost anything when it was combined with something else. Telaxia was an Enhancer. It was also highly addictive if ingested by anyone. The old superhero had fallen because of his addiction to the stuff. Getting gunned down in a fire fight with some gangsters. There were only about five people in the world that even remembered the stuff even existed. Even the military, who had records on it, had relegated it to an unsecured building and forgotten it's danger.

There wasn't much in the bottle either, but he could easily create more once he analyzed the substance. He already knew quite about it anyway, this was just the final steps and then Jay Garrick would die.

After that he would be able to create his formula once more and emulate the Flash again. This time it wouldn't be temporary either. He just needed time to perfect it and find a balance within his original chemical compound and that wouldn't take any time at all since most of the research was already completed. Once he did that he would be able to move onto the next step of his plan.

The hover bike's computer beeped to let him know that it was done upgrading the new hardware. With this second theft all of Charlie's equipment was complete, but she didn't know that. She thought it would be complete when the next crime was pulled off, but by then his plans would be into the final stage. The hover bike was a work of art, but wasn't really of use to him. It was a toy to keep Charlie out of the way while he worked, nothing more.

Glancing at the clock, he realized he'd spent most of the afternoon in the garage tinkering around. He quickly started some simple experiments on the Telaxia compound and let the computer do its work. It would only be a few more hours now and everything would be ready.

Nodding to himself he headed inside and saw that Charlie was making dinner for them. Over the years the girl had learned to be quite a cook. Now if only she would get rid of the stupid hair style and act like a regular girl.

"Hi Grandpa!"

"Charlie, I've finished adding the new parts to your bike."

She ran over and hugged him. "Thank you!"

Patting her on the back he looked around. "So what did you make for dinner?"

"Something simple. Some spaghetti, vegetables, and a bit of wine."

"Sound great." He said as he stepped over to the table.

"If the bike is done, do you want me to get that last item tomorrow?"

"No, I still have some other equipment upgrades to perform tonight on the other items you brought back. I also need to analyze that powder you brought back. It's quite dangerous if not handled properly, but with the right mixture I can enhance the speed and power of your bike by sixty five percent."

Charlie nodded. "That's great! We can boost the laser with that kind of power and stay in the air."

"Exactly. I thought you might like that."

oooooooooo

"Ranma!" Joan yelled up the stairs. "Dinner will be ready here in a few minutes."

"Alright." Ranma called.

For the last few hours, ever since the near fight, a number of visions had assaulted Ranma. At first it hadn't really bothered him, but then it started to really distract him. When they first started him, Jay, and even Max Mercury were running across Keystone City after visiting one of the police stations.

At the time Jay had looked worried, but Ranma wasn't sure if he should ask if something was wrong. He kept looking at a piece of paper with a bunch of chemicals listed. Ranma knew he didn't recognize any of them, even from all his reading earlier in the day.

As if that didn't give him a perpetual migraine. The first vision hit him right as he was about to head out on another run with Max. They took off like they normally did and this time Ranma didn't even have to concentrate like he usually did. No aura or electricity or anything, though the acceleration was quite a bit slower it allowed him time to build up his speed at a much more controlled pace.

Instead Ranma made it about two blocks when his head started to hurt and his vision blurred out and he stumbled to a halt as he watched a large man, his teacher Genma, was beating the living hell out of him and screaming about something. Throwing him around like a rag doll, booting him into the air, and punching him over and over without a hint of mercy.

The vision seemed to last for hours, but by the time he fell to his knees, only a few seconds had gone by. Even Max was just running back to him looking worried. Several of the people that saw Ranma stumble to a stop seemed to know who he was and they quickly helped Max carry him over to bench.

Ranma didn't like to be coddled like that, but one thing he did realize was that nearly all his martial arts knowledge was coming back to him and the reasons why Genma treated him like a punching bag. He could remember thousands of moves, how they worked, when, and how to use them effectively. He realized that his skills were also a little rusty after not using some of the moves for over a month.

All his running around was keeping him in fantastic shape, but there were other muscles he wasn't using while running that needed to be re-strengthened or he wouldn't ever be able to do certain moves right. He was a martial artist with nearly eight years of training under his belt. That man seemed to have taught him to do the impossible, but Ranma could tell that he had several important memories that were still missing.

So after that he'd been slowly running through his martial arts training kata all afternoon. He quickly realized that the style he used at the martial arts school was nothing compared to what he knew now. Combining that with his speed and he was able to push through several days worth of training in a matter of hours. The only thing he didn't do was the aerial moves. His body was at its limit after everything that had happened lately.

He was still feeling the pain from that girl's beating a few hours before. For a second he wanted to grab 'little Ranma' and whimper in remembered pain as well, as if that would do him any good. She could kick like a mule. With a sigh he headed down stairs and walked over to the table. Jay was giving him that funny look again.

"What's up?" Ranma asked as he sat down.

"Hmm?" Jay asked.

"That funny look you keep giving me." Ranma explained.

Joan laughed as she wandered into the room. "You keep surprising him, dear."

"How?"

"You don't act like Impulse."

Now Ranma looked confused. "Huh?"

"Well you see, I've noticed that whenever someone gets access to the speed force they seem to use it for everything. Running to work, to school, chores, even running downstairs to dinner. Bart does it all the time."

Ranma nodded. "I would have, but after everything that has happened today I'm just wore out."

"Now that I can understand, you did do the library, that puzzle, then spent the after noon practicing at the school, then the base, and that girl you ran into didn't help matters either. You've had a busy day."

Wincing, Ranma nodded.

Jay just laughed. "Well eat up, then we can relax for a couple of hours before it's time for bed. There are a number of things we have to do tomorrow."

"Like what?"

For the next few seconds Jay didn't say anything. "Well, tomorrow I'm expecting a guest in town. He hasn't said that he's actually going to show up, but I know the guy well enough to know he'll be around. We just have to find him."

"Who is it?"

"A member of the JLA." Jay explained.

"The what?"

Jay laughed again. "I keep forgetting you don't know all about this stuff. JLA stands for Justice League of America, a group of Super Hero's that band together to fight battles that threaten the entire planet."

Ranma gave him a blank look. "This happens so often that it required that an entire group of people with powers be formed?"

"Indeed, there are actually more than one group. Though each of them fights different kinds of battles. For example there is the Justice Society of America, the group I belong to, and we fight similar types of danger. It doesn't help that most of the groups have one or two super villains that they fight regularly."

"Weird."

"Jay, don't forget to look up that chemical list you brought home." Joan said as they started to eat dinner.

He nodded. "Nearly forgot about that. I still can't recall what that list was for."

oooooooooo

The moon lit up the countryside as a blur of motion shot across the landscape, a long line of lightning charged air stretching out behind a running figure. This man's features are impossible to make out as he runs, the colors of his red and blue costume coloring his lightning as he runs. An evil grin crosses his face as he speeds up and runs through small town in the middle of Colorado.

His purpose is unknown, but it quickly becomes obvious as he runs at and phases right through a small car driving down the road. Seconds after the man passes through he has passed through two buildings, three more cars, and a small wooded park and vanished into the distance.

Behind him everything he passed through starts to violently explode as his passing supercharged everything he touched, causing it to detonate. He doesn't have to hear the explosions to know they went off, nor the emergency crews responding to the scenes. He's already several miles away.

No, he can feel it in the speed force as he runs, his feet barely touching the ground. Two eyes, barely visible in his shadow covered face light up with an unholy glee as he finds a freeway and decides to see how many cars he can take out before someone responds.

His speed picks up as he runs down the road, around curves, and into the mountains. Ten late night drivers meet their fates as their vehicles detonate, causing giant craters in the middle of the roads and echoes through the mountains.

Twenty eight dead, across a five hundred miles of land, in less than five seconds. The man comes to a stop at a mountain lookout, high in the mountains and gazes out over the snow covered hills in the distance. He sneers as a pair of medical helicopters race by several minutes later, heading for a pile of flaming debris a couple miles away. Then in a burst of lightning he vanishes, setting off a sonic boom that echoes across the land.

oooooooooo

The next morning Ranma was up early and spent several minutes meditating before he rolled out of bed and got dressed. He was a bit surprised to find that Joan had lain a set of clothes out for him to wear. The clothes sat on top of the one dresser in the room. A pair of jeans and a tight fitting black t-shirt.

He also put his cloth bracers back on. He just liked the look of that dragon as it wrapped around his forearm. It was just cool. Once dressed, he spent several seconds running through some complicated stretches to loosen up some muscles that he hadn't used in weeks.

After several hours sleep Ranma could tell that a few more of his memories were back. He could remember some kid in with a large spatula trying to fight him for food. Ranma still wasn't sure what it meant, but felt as if they weren't enemies. As he entered the back yard he reached out and drew some of the speed force into his body, forming an aura of electricity and started his martial arts practice.

Unlike the night before he was able to let loose and with in a blink of the eye he was bouncing all over the yard, throwing punches, and doing kicks. At first his movements were a little off balance, but he quickly corrected his mistakes as he ran through everything he could remember.

After more than an hour of this he finally came to a stop, sweat dripping off his body, and gasping for air. His clothing was steaming a little, but that quickly vanished as the light breeze cooled him down. He let go of the Speed and just stood there feeling the difference.

This was only the third day since he started training how to use his speed and already he felt like he could nearly anything. He already had several ideas running through his head on adapting his moves and the speed force for combat. He wasn't fast enough to actually break the sound barrier yet, but he could tell he was close.

He looked up as Jay stepped outside and looked him over. "It's time for breakfast, and then we have to head over and talk to a friend of mine."

"Sure, I just finished anyway."

"What was all that you were doing there? I know some martial arts myself and I've never seen some of those moves."

"Just some stuff I'm remembering. I was also trying to adapt the moves to this rate of speed so that I have full control. It will take me several months before I can do that though, especially if I get even faster than I am now."

"Oh you will, you are at about a quarter of your full speed right now."

Ranma shook his head. "I can't believe I have that far to go yet."

"It's only the third day kid. You should be there by the end of the month at least."

He sighed as they headed in side and ate a quick breakfast. After that Jay led them across the city on an early morning patrol. Ranma had to push to even keep Jay in sight today. He barely managed to keep up with the old man as they ran. He only caught up with him when he came to a stop outside a tall skyscraper.

"Here we are." Jay said, not even winded.

"Who are we meeting?"

"The daughter of an old friend of mine."

"Oh?"

"Jessy Quick, daughter of Johnny Quick. She runs QuickStart Enterprises and is one of us as well."

Ranma smirked a little. "I take it the name represents what she does?"

"Yep."

"Now follow me, if you can run fast you can get into see her without an appointment." He shot into the building, using the nearest open door.

Ranma was right on his tale before he even had time to think about it and within half a second were racing up the stair wells, dodging several people along the way. They came out on a small outdoor overlook. They came to a stop as Jay noticed a blonde, blue eyed girl sitting at one of the outdoor tables. Ranma figured she was in her mid twenties at least, though she was still good looking from what he could see.

She stood up and hugged Jay as he walked over. "Jay!"

"Jesse, this is Ranma Saotome."

Turning her head, she looked him over. "So this is the one that showed up the other day? They seem to be popping up all over the place these days."

Jay laughed and nodded. "It's not that bad and Impulse is still learning so he doesn't quite count, you know how he tends to dash into things without a single thought. Ranma is quickly catching up and should be up to speed, so to speak, in a few weeks. I was going to have the two of them meet later on today."

"That might be a good idea." Jesse said as she sat back down and drank some coffee out of a nearby mug. "So why you stopping by?"

"I need to examine some of Johnny's early note books."

"Why? Those aren't all that useful."

"We consulted on a case about forty years ago and I wanted to see if he wrote something down that I might have missed. What I want is right on the tip of my tongue but I just can't seem to remember what it was. I'm almost positive that Johnny wrote what want in one of his note books."

Jesse nodded. "Sure, you can give it a shot, but take a look at this before you go read them." She handed over the rolled up morning paper.

"Which page?"

"The front."

Jay spread the paper out, blinked, and started to scan through the three page article on a group of explosive deaths in Colorado the night before. "This is bad, but what does it have to do with us?"

"There's a graph on the second page, check out the times for all the explosions and connect the dots." Jesse explained.

Glancing over Jay's shoulder, Ranma could see a small map of Colorado with a number of locations marked. "They make up a giant letter 'E'"

"Indeed." Jesse conceded.

"These deaths and explosions all happened at nearly the exact same time?"

"Yes, I was going to check it out, but since you're here I was thinking it might be connected to something you are working on."

"Did you ask Wally."

Jesse snorted. "As if I can ever find him. He practically ignores everyone as he races around the globe day in and out. I haven't actually talked to him in a couple of weeks now, other than when he was telling us what to do during the clean up."

"He's been moody."

"I noticed." Jay said. "I may have to change my plans a little because of this. Someone needs to look into it."

Jesse nodded. "Another reason I'm handing this to you is that I've got some business to take care of in a little while and I won't be able to even help till this after noon. Maybe you can get Max to look into it as well."

Reaching into her pocket Jesse pulled out a key ring and handed it over. "In the basement of my house, the office filing cabinets. Third one from the left has all his books."

Jay lit up with electricity and flickered before Ranma could do anything. Then Jay handed the key back. "Thank you."

Now Ranma was gaping at Jay. "You couldn't have possibly…"

"Told you kid, you have a long way to go." Jay said and laughed. "Now come on, let's go check those note books."

The blonde waved goodbye as they ran out of the building a few seconds later.

oooooooooo

Batman sat in front of his computer down inside the Bat Cave gazing up at the large overhead screen, his eyes narrowed. He tapped a couple of buttons and cycled through several pieces of electronic paperwork trying to find a common thread among all the data. Lists of thefts from over thirty different places all across the country. He knew what was stolen, and when, but wasn't sure about the why.

So innocent looking that no one would even think to connect them, but Batman knew better. Two innocent thefts from a chemical storage lot in New York, chemicals that weren't even made anymore. A missing case of an out of use drug from a small company that operates near the Rocky Mountains. He taps another button and confirms that at one point the drug was used by the military in a number of tests in forties.

The crimes are listed, page after page, from all across the country. He's sure that even more would show up if he had better access the computers in Europe and Japan. By themselves the chemicals and drugs have a very limited use, but when combined with the right substance, become something very dangerous. Another button sends the computer into its search mode, correlating the information into a whole.

Minutes later Batman glares at the screen as the computer confirms what he was thinking. "A lightning bolt…"

"Alfred! Prep the Batwing! I'm headed for Keystone City to investigate a series of thefts."

"Very well sir. Shall I pack your pajamas?"

Five minutes later the Batwing hovers almost invisibly over Wayne Manner, hidden in the shadows of the night sky. It rises into the air as it's engines kick in and vanishes into the distance almost instantly. Its muted engines are only heard by the cows of a farm as it races by, slowly picking up speed.

oooooooooo

"How did you do that back there!" Ranma asked.

"Do what?" Jay asked as they ran through Keystone and headed for the residential section.

"Move so fast!" Ranma said. "I know you said I had a ways to go, but I couldn't even keep up with you for most of it."

"You have to work your way up to that speed. Look how much speed you accomplished at the library, how much you learned. It just needs to be applied Ranma, focused correctly. I've been doing this job for over sixty years kid, so I know a thing or two."

"That was just amazing!"

"Well it might surprise you, but if you are anything like Wally right now, I think you should be able to match him easily and he has been known to circle the world several times in less than a second."

Ranma gapped at the old man and couldn't even imagine running that fast. "You have to be kidding."

"I'm not. I can circle the world at least three times a second, but I'd need a couple hours of rest afterward."

They raced across the bridge as Ranma tried to understand that kind of speed. Ranma had to admit that he was having a hard time comprehending anything that fast. A few seconds later they stood in front of a small three story house hidden among some tall trees. They were inside before anyone could even see them. They headed into the basement and located the filing cabinets.

"There, that should be the one." Jay said as he opened the right cabinet and pulled out a stack of small leather bound books. He grabbed the earliest ones, flipped through them and handed them to Ranma. "Read these as I finish them, there is some good information in these that will help you."

Frowning, Ranma took the book and started to read.

Jay stopped on the seventh one and looked over at Ranma. "Whatever you do, never say the formula that Jesse uses while you are already running. It could very well kill you or send you back into the speed force. Wally used it once while he was already running and he said his speed skyrocketed."

Paling a little Ranma nodded as they quickly finished the note books. Going back into the speed force was no longer something he really wanted at the moment. He had a feeling he could go back any time he really wanted.

They detailed the life of a very stubborn man and all the adventures he went on during his life. The last book detailed his final adventure, written by Jesse, soon after Johnny Quick entered the speed force. "I don't see anything in these that might be of interest to you."

Jay shook his head. "I would have sworn that what I wanted was in one of these books. It's from one of our earliest cases."

"Maybe we skipped over it by accident?" Ranma asked.

"I don't know. I was looking for a chemical list that was used by one of our enemies."

Ranma skimmed through the books again, this time in less than a second as Jay watched. "I don't see anything like a list. Are you sure it's in one of these books?"

"Positive." Jay said, then shrugged. "Guess I'll have to dig around a little more."

"Well where to now then?" Ranma asked as they put the books away and left the house. "It's not even noon yet."

"Well, how about we do some long distance running?"

"How far?"

"About six hundred miles or so, I think it's time you met Impulse officially."

"You mean that kid that caused all those problems when we were cleaning up the city? The one that got bored?"

Jay grinned. "Yep, Impulse is a bit of a character, but he seems to have a good handle on the job. Max is keeping an eye on him, trying to teach him patience. But he's only been at it for a few days now so they aren't even settled in at their new house yet."

"What an impossible job."

"Indeed, but well worth the time and Max needs Impulse just as much as Impulse needs Max." Jay said and shot off down the road without another word.

Ranma stood there for a second before he shot after the old man. The guy was running so fast that Ranma couldn't even catch up with him. Jay was over a mile ahead of him and that distance was growing with every step Ranma took. Growling, Ranma bared down, focused his aura, and slowly started to increase speed as he weaved his way through the center of Keystone traffic.

Over the next several minutes they proceeded to race around both cities at speeds that pushed Ranma beyond his limits. Jay explained that no matter why they were out running, they should always take a couple of seconds to do a patrol of the city for any kind of trouble. It helped to keep the city's crime rates down at a minimum and the criminals on their toes.

Eventually Jay took a sharp right hand turn and shot down a road that led out of the city. Ranma kept up as best he could but Jay quickly started to out run him once more. Before he knew it Jay was on the horizon, only his lightning aura could be seen trailing behind him.

What really surprised Ranma, although it really shouldn't have, was when Jay left the road and went cross country. Running across corn fields, though open country, and around hills until they found themselves entering Alabama.

Ranma watched the signs as they ran and realized that they were running near I-195 and just entering Jasper County, heading for Manchester. As they neared the city Jay started to slow down and Ranma was finally able to catch up with him. They glided into town and automatically started to check it out, doing a patrol of the streets so that they knew the territory.

"Why are we here again?"

"To have you meet Impulse."

"Right, and why does he live in the middle of nowhere?"

Jay grinned a little. "Because it's boring here."

"Right." Ranma muttered, he wasn't sure if boring is what Impulse might need if the kid was as hyperactive as Jay said he was.

Eventually Jay came to a stop in front of a two story house and looked around to make sure he was at the right place. Seconds later Ranma was finally able to come to a stop beside Jay and nearly collapsed gasping for air.

"Gotta do better than that kid, we've only been running for a couple of minutes. Nothing to fast."

Ranma glared at him.

Ignoring him, Jay walked over to the house and knocked on the door. It opened almost instantly and a teenager with messy brown hair stuck his head out. "What?"

And then he was gone before Jay could answer. Ranma looked in the window and realized that the kid was running all over the house leaving hundreds of after images. Several of them were watching TV trying to watch more than one show at once, one was doing homework, one was sitting in the corner pouting, while yet more were doing household chores.

Jay looked amused. "I see."

"Jay I should kick your ass for talking me into this." Max Mercury said as he stepped out of the kitchen and handed them both a glass of water.

"Looks like you're doing a pretty good job Max."

"That kid…"

"Where?" Bart asked as he looked at them from behind Max before the after image just vanished.

"Bart!" Max yelled and reached out to grab the air in front of him. The white haired speedster held the collar of Bart's shirt as the boy glared at him.

"This is boring."

"Good. Now, Bart, I'd like you to meet Ranma Saotome. He's the newest speedster to come about."

"Hi!" Ten Bart's said at once from different locations around the room. "You're the guy that decked Wally a couple days ago! That was so cool!"

Ranma wondered if Max even had any control over the kid at all. "How you doing?"

"I'm bored!" Bart yelled.

"Well you're still taking the day off. I told you, no speeding!" Max yelled. "Just live a normal day, at normal speed."

"Humph!" Bart muttered and folded his arms, looking rebellious.

"No need to rush through everything Bart." Jay said. "It can be relaxing to just let things happen at normal speed."

The by glared some more. "Flick a light switch and tell me that again. It takes forever for the stupid light to come on! A whole minute at least!"

"A light comes on instantly." Ranma said in confusion.

"One would think so." Max said and dropped Bart, who ran over to the TV and started up a video game.

"He speeds through everything?"

Max nodded. "Even his perceptions are sped up with the speed force and I can't seem to get him to slow down."

"Why would anyone live like that?" Ranma asked as he flipped a light on and off a couple of times.

"It's all he knows." Jay said. "He was born immersed in the speed force and it was making him grow at an accelerated rate. About one year per week I think, and his parents had to place him in a virtual reality setting to keep him educated and occupied. He was recently stabilized, but he still thinks real life is like that VR chamber of his. We'll break that habit of his one of these days."

"I'm standing right here you know." Bart complained as his after image faded from beside Jay, it looked annoyed, and bored. Then he appeared in front of Ranma.

"Wha?"

Pointing a finger at Ranma, Bart yelled. "I CHALLENG YOU TO MORTAL KOMBAT!"

Ranma blinked. "Huh?"

"BART!" Max yelled.

"What is Mortal Combat?" Ranma asked.

"Kombat, with a 'K' and it's a fighting game." Bart said and executed several badly copied martial arts moves. Ranma almost laughed at him.

"You want to fight me?"

"To Mortal Kombat! It's the coolest game ever!"

"This week." Max muttered to himself and sipped some of his coffee.

"It's a game?"

"Yeah! There's all these cool characters…" Bart explained, going into detail on all the different people in the game.

"Right, it's about fighting, I can kick your ass." Ranma said confidently. Then Bart dragged him over to the TV and handed him a control.

"Let's play."

Ranma wondered what the evil glint in the kid's eye was for.

ooooooooooo

With a steady hand the old man carefully added six drops of distilled Telaxia and watched the liquid in the beaker start to froth up. He quickly placed a stopper to make sure it all stayed in the beaker. It had to sit for a couple of hours to let it settle, but after that his plan could be set in motion.

Now all he had to do was find a way to get the his grand daughter to drink the stuff. Every time he forced her to sit there and accept his weekly shot she would pull away from him more and more. She needed to be controlled and soon, this streak of independence was irritating him more than he wanted to admit.

It was that same independence that got her father killed. He briefly considered using some mind altering drugs and quickly discarded the idea. She only had to pull one more job for him and then she could be cut loose. No matter how hard he tried she was just two head strong for her own good.

Turning, he grabbed a small silver canister and several of the microchips off the counter and moved over to the hover bike once more. He removed the seat and pulled out a canister similar to the one in his hand and switched them. He could hear the bike's systems warming up as the new fuel mixture cycled through the its injector system.

The fuel was one of the things that made running the hover bike so expensive, but again, it only needed to function one more time and then it wouldn't be needed anymore. He quickly replaced the seat, opened up a small panel on the side and started inserting micro chips.

After about an hour he finished the updates to the hover bike and programmed the onboard computer to scan the software for signs of instability. Nodding to himself he walked back over to the counter and glanced at the beaker. The liquid inside was nearly complete. He swirled it around and watched as it sparkled under the lights.

He could see the faint signs of a purple color starting to form. Once it turned a deep purple it would be ready for use. Then Jay Garrick was going to pay for ruining his life once and for all.

"Grandpa, lunch is ready!" Charlie yelled from inside the house.

"I'll be right there." He said.

The hover bike's computer would need another ten minutes to finish its scan, and the beaker needed at least another hour. Plenty of time for lunch and to make some final decisions. He realized that this would most likely be the last time he ever got a chance to pay Garrick back and he planned to put everything he had into it, even if it killed him.

As he headed for the door into the house he spotted the small box sitting on the shelf marked 'personal'. If he ever died Charlie knew she was to open the box for instruction on what to do. Shrugging, he forcibly thrust the matter out of his mind and headed into the house and smiled at his grand daughter.

All his plans were finally beginning to form into a scheme that even Garrick wouldn't be able to stop. He almost laughed to himself, since Garrick was so fast he was used to dealing with evil faster than most people could blink. Therefore the only way to make him pay was to be slow and sneaky and forty years of planning and slow, nearly unnoticeable steps was working perfectly.

Just one or more days and the bastard would be dead. "Garrick's death will be slow and painful."

"What was that grandpa?"

"Nothing, just thinking out loud." He said as he sat down at the table. "What's for lunch."

"Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches."

"Sounds great, I have something here you might like to taste as well." He said as he poured her a bit of the Telaxia compound into a glass.

oooooooooo

"AGHAAAA!" Ranma yelled and threw the controller down on the floor.

"I win again!" Bart yelled as Ranma grumbled to himself. "You suck at this game!"

Now Ranma was glaring at the little punk. "Why you…"

"Wanna play again?"

"I've lost the last twenty games." Ranma snapped. "Even I know when I need to learn a little more about this game before I can even have a chance against you."

"So you want to play again." Bart said and handed the, now smashed, controller back to Ranma.

"No, maybe some other time though."

Bart slumped. "Now I'm bored again and it's only been a few hours."

Jay wandered into the room. "Ranma, if your done we might as well head back to Keystone, I want to do another patrol and see if we can find Barry."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I need to talk to him and…" Jay trailed off suddenly as a long forgotten memory suddenly surfaced.

"Mr. Garrick?" Ranma asked. "Jay?"

"Ranma stay here, I'll be back tomorrow to pick you up." Jay's after image said just before it faded away.

"What!" Ranma yelled.

Bart looked curious. "What was that all about?"

"I don't know, but I don't intend to just sit here and wait for him to come back. If he's in trouble I might be able to help."

"Jay can handle this on his own." Max said before they could even think of leaving. "He'll be back soon, just sit here and wait until he gets back."

"You have got to be kidding me." Ranma said as he glared at the old man.

"I kid you not, now sit down and wait. Play some more games or something." Max said as he changed into his blue and white costume.

"But he might be heading into danger."

Max shrugged. "Jay wouldn't have told you to stay unless he thought it would be dangerous for anyone to follow him. I don't know why exactly, but I know when not to interfere."

Ranma didn't know what to do. On one hand a part of him was more than willing to just sit there and wait. Another part of him wanted to chase after the old man and see what was going on. Neither one of them seemed like the right thing to do and Max had a point too, Jay knew what he was doing.

"Well I'm going to find. He didn't tell me to stay." Impulse said as he raced out the door.

"Bart! Come back here!" Max yelled, but the boy was long gone.

Ranma smirked a little.

Max was about to rush off after the boy, but then he glanced over at Ranma. "This isn't good."

"Yeah, but I'm not about to sit around while some old guy runs off into danger without help." Ranma said. "I'm with Impulse there, let's go and see what's going on. You need to chase after him anyway and leaving me here isn't exactly the best idea."

Blurring, Max donned his uniform and adjusted his mask. "I don't like this idea boy."

"To bad." Ranma snapped, though he was unsure why. Something about being called 'boy' just irked him for some reason. "Let's go."

They ran out the door and headed for Keystone City. For the first time Ranma found himself running with someone else other than Jay. At first it seemed the same, but then he took a closer look as they exited the city and continued to slowly accelerate and noticed that Max Mercury's electricity flowed around him differently.

Ranma watched for couple of seconds and adjusted the flow of energy around his body. Even though it was just a slight change he could feel the difference right away and accidentally shot ahead of Max as the raced. It didn't take him long to catch up though and less than a minute later they raced through a field and hit the outskirts Keystone.

They could instantly tell that something extremely wrong was taking place as they noticed a dozen clouds of smoke rising in the sky. Ranma didn't think as he glanced at Max, motioned at the closest fire, and changed direction. The old man nodded as they split up.

Going around everything seemed to be a waste of energy in this situation and Ranma planted his foot and launched into the air. He yelled out as he flew over the house he was aiming at, past the next four, and landed awkwardly on the roof of fifth house. Resilient as always, Ranma quickly corrected for the larger than normal jump and raced across the rooftops.

He kept the fire in sight at all times and quickly determined that some kind of explosion had taken place as he neared the house and spotted the flaming car. He came to a stop and looked around, but the police hadn't shown up yet. Spotting a hose connected to the house he started to spray the car down.

Being inexperienced with his powers, Ranma was had there was a feeling there was something he might be able to do to put the fire out quickly, but he had no clue what. So he started to spay the car down and quickly got the fire under control and spotted something that shocked him completely.

On the ground next to the smoldering car the remains of the car's driver were spread out on the ground where they had fallen. He gaped at the skull looking up at him from beside the tire and nearly lost his lunch. Gritting his teeth, he ran over the house, turned the hose off, and raced for the next fire.

The second one was even worse, five shredded and burning bodies littered the sidewalk outside a laundry store.

Quite by accident he raced by and sucked all the oxygen from the fires, putting them out almost instantly. Several nearby pedestrians looked as shocked as he did.

"Did any of you see what happened?"

"No, they were just standing there when they just exploded. Then a few minutes later you showed up." One of them said.

Ranma nodded. "Call the police and tell them what happened. I have to get to the next scene and see if I can help."

They nodded as he ran down the street, heading for the next column of smoke in the distance. As he approached he spotted Max and Impulse racing around a large fire, creating a miniature tornado of air and snuffing the fire in an instant. He came to a stop next to them.

"Any bodies here?"

"No." Max said. "But we've been finding them all over the city. Someone is using the speed force to kill."

"I found Jay." Impulse spoke up. "He said that an old enemy of his is doing this, but didn't want to say which one."

"Any ideas?" Ranma asked.

"Way to man possibilities." Max said before Impulse could rattle off several hundred names. "There are a dozen or so super fast villains around, but this kind of destruction doesn't fit any of them."

"Professor Zoom." Impulse said and nodded knowingly. "He would do this."

"…and he's dead." Max snapped.

"They never stay dead."

Max sighed.

In the distance the sound of an explosion thundered over the city. Max and Impulse shot towards it without a second thought, but as Ranma turned to follow he spotted something familiar. Racing through the air about three blocks away was a very familiar hover bike. The same one he'd seen at the military base.

For a second he thought about getting Max and telling him, but by the time he got back she would be gone. Energy flared around him as he raced down the street and watched as the hover bike raced along. Once more he jumped to the roof of a house, being a lot more careful, and followed after the girl. She was part of this mess, he was sure of it.

For a second he thought about getting Max and telling him, but by the time he got back she would be gone. Energy flared around him as he raced down the street and watched the hover bike raced along. He changed directions and moved to intercept the bike as quickly as he could, but not to fast either, he had to do this right. There were lives at stake.

Once more he jumped to the roof of a house, being a lot more careful than last time, and followed the girl. After watching the way Jay took care of these things for a couple of days and reading those journals Ranma was pretty sure he could stop the girl. Everything he'd read and seen told him that he just needed to be careful and he could do it.

Racing through the city at all hours of the day as super speed was like running through a world of frozen images. This gave him time to think about what he was going to do as he ran along, something that felt like hours to him, even though it was barely half a second. Watching the girl he judged her direction and guessed that she might be heading for Star Labs.

He picked up speed and arrived at the gate around the massive complex. The security gate that controlled traffic access was wide open, a victim of the multiple explosions around the city. The guard inside the small shack next to the building was dead as well.

He heard another explosion in the distance and saw a pillar of fire rise into the sky over by the bridge that separated Keystone and Central City. Ranma ground his teeth and ducked behind the guard shack just as the hove cycle raced by over head. He could hear the girl laughing and cheering someone on as another explosion happened in the distance.

The girl was already at the building. He saw her pull a weapon out and blast a hole in the side of the building about three floors up. The explosion took out most of the windows in the building and some kind of gas started to billow out of all the holes. Several people staggered outside and collapsed to the ground even as the girl maneuvered the hove bike through the hole and landed.

Ranma ran for the building and considered some of the things he'd read in those journals by Johnny Quick. What he recalled the most about them was a list of techniques that were unique to speedsters, things Jay had only hinted at so far. Ranma narrowed his eyes as he approached the building without slowing down and raced up the side as easily as running on flat ground.

In a burst of electricity he came to a stop next to the hover bike and glanced around. The girl wasn't anywhere to be seen. He scanned the room for several seconds. "Where is she?"

There was a crash out in the hall and Ranma yanked the door open and looked out to see about a dozen people in lab coats passed out on the floor. The girl was had just knocked over a cart and looked up as he entered the hall. She gaped at him for a second and Ranma got another look at her and could tell that something was different than before. "You."

"Give yourself up and this will go a lot easier on you." Ranma said.

She laughed, a slightly deranged sounds. "You can't stop me. Not now."

"Just…"

"Grandpa has made me a god." She hissed. Kid Rocket pulled a handgun out of its holster at her side, pointed it at him and fired several shots.

Twisting and rolling out of the way of the weapon, Ranma flared and ran at her. Her smirk really should have told him to back off, but he ignored it as he closed in on her. He was sure once he got in close enough she would be easy to take down.

Suddenly electricity flared around her, making her eyes light up with purple energy. "Got you!"

Ranma ran into her fist at high speed and yelled out as he was suddenly thrown the length of the hall. He slammed into the wall with a grunt. Then he was back on his feet, but he could feel some blood running down the side of his face from where he'd hit the wall. "You can move fast too. You couldn't do that before."

"I'm the new and improved Kid Rocket!" She yelled as she twirled both her guns and started sending shots down the hall again.

Cursing Ranma dodged them at high speed, but it was even harder now that she was firing them almost faster than he could dodge. He was just glad that she couldn't fire the guns at super speed. The bullets could only be fired at a certain speed. When he was about halfway down the hall the wall next to him exploded and the hover cycle moved into the hallway on it's own.

"Give up now or I'll stop holding back on you!" Ranma yelled. He couldn't let her get away.

"You don't stand a chance against me! I'm faster than you are, stronger, and better than you will ever be!" The girl yelled as a couple of blurs were tossed at him.

A couple of Grenades.

He'd never seen them used before, but it only took him a second to recognize them. Shots fired at him were easy to dodge, but these would cause a lot of damage to the people lying unconscious in the hallway. With a twist of his foot Ranma felt his energy change again as he started grabbing people and racing them out of the building.

Kid Rocket laughed as she jumped on the hover bike, spun it around, and shot back out the hole she made to enter the building. By the time Ranma got everyone out of the hallway she was just exiting the hole. Ranma was a bit surprised that she wasn't long gone, but realized that even though she could move fast, that hover bike couldn't.

At his current speed he was moving so fast that he could see the Grenades slowly exploding. The first was sending a wave of explosive force through the hall, but not doing much damage. The other one seemed to be a gas grenade of some kind as it too went off.

A plan formed in Ranma's mind and he was in motion before he even had time to think about consequences or personal danger, he needed to stop Kid Rocker. She was about twenty feet from the building even as Ranma reached the hole in the outer wall and jumped. He rose into the air, his martial arts training taking over instantly.

"I got you!" He yelled.

"You insane #&!" Kid Rocket yelled as she turned to see him hanging off the back of the hover cycle. She pulled her gun out again, pointed it at his head, and pulled the trigger.

"Die!"

"AGHAAA!" Ranma yelled as he threw himself off the back of the bike to dodge the shot.

oooooooooo

To be Concluded…

Notes: I can not complain enough about how hard it is to upload a chapter to the site 'that won't even let us write its name into a document' these days. What an unholy pain in the ass this site is turning out to be, even my own is more user friendly. Sheesh! Scene Breaks exist for a reason and yet, apparently, we aren't allowed to use them anymore. WTF is the use?

oO

The chapter itself was a chore to write out, but overall its a good chapter. Ranma's powers are adapting a little every time he goes into a dangerous situation. He hung around with Jay for a while and picked up the basics, then he learned some more just by observing Max Mercury and Impulse in action, and now he's learning on the fly and even from old journals written by Johnny Quick. Quite an accomplishment for four days worth of training.

Lerning at Super Speed.

If you haven't figured out who the villian is by the rather blatent use of his talents in this chapter, shame on you. You need to read more JSA. I stated that when I started this story that I wasn't aware of a recent use of the chracter and then it was pointed out that he was indeed being used. Go figure. I adapted this slightly AU story to cover those actions. I'll reveal his identity in the next chapter if you still can't figure it out.

CRose


	5. Chapter 04

Notes: Time for the final chapter of this story. I do have to apologize about rather long wait. I've had about 35kb of this done since about June, but I was battling a bad case of 'lack of interest' with the story. Wouldn't call it a block, but I was being pulled in so many directions that I put it on hold for a few months so I could come back to it with a fresh perspective. This is the final result. 

It came out quite a bit better than I was expecting. Got a couple of surprise set up and even better, the whole reason for the title of the fic. BlindmanX was talking about doing a side story to this at some point as well. So more may pop up here ina few months if he gets around to it.

Heh, enjoy and remember to review!

oooooooooo  
Sudden Burst of Speed  
Chapter 04 - Racing the Ghost  
Cory D. Rose  
BlindmanX  
© 2005  
oooooooooo

BANG!

oooooooooo

Right before Kid Rocket's eyes the world seemed to freeze for a few seconds. Her perceptions swirled around and she recalled an event from earlier that day. She could hear laughter echoing around her as her grandfather appeared before her. They were back in the house and he'd just handed her a drink.

She took it without thought and didn't think twice about drinking it since less than a day had passed since he forced her to take the shot. Grandpa had watched her of course, but that was normal for him. He liked to watch what was going on around them. Whatever was in the drink didn't take effect till after dinner was finished and by then even she could tell that something was wrong. She felt a little too good.

"I feel funny." She mumbled as she staggered to the kitchen.

"It's about time."

"What…did you…do?" She giggled and wobbled around.

"Just a little incentive my dear." He said as the walked over to the couch and picked up a small case. "It's time for the final enhancement."

Charlie tried to move away, but he grabbed her arm and dragged her over to the couch. "No…"

He threw her on the couch. "Be quiet and quit complaining."

"No more shots." She slurred.

"You won't hide from me this time Charlie. I won't deal with your attitude anymore with my plans so close to bearing fruit."

"No more pain. No more."

"Shut up." He snapped as he opened the case to reveal a needle.

"NOOOO!" Charlie yelled and tried to get away, but he held her down and grabbed her arm.

"This will be the final shot Charlie, then you will never have to take them again."

"But, but…"

"Now shut up."

"No MORE!" She yelled and struggled to get away but her body wouldn't respond.

He pressed his knee into her back as he held her arm in place and twisted to bring a vein closer to the surface. He spotted it almost instantly. "Now Charlie, it is time you achieved your full potential."

"Leave me alone, I don't want to do this anymore Grandpa!"

The old man glared down at her for a second. "Why? With this shot you will be given the greatest super power ever created. Super speed, the ability to run like all the speedsters in the city. The ability to do what you want in the blink of an eye and never have to worry about things again."

"The…pain…" She whined.

"Doesn't mater, it is just a few brief minutes of pain. Something for you to forget, because of what you will gain in the end. You will be reborn." He told her in his caring grandfather voice, now tinged with just a little of his true madness.

She started sobbing.

"Choose your fate grand daughter. Take the shot or leave this house and never come back." He hissed in her ear. "I will not tolerate this attitude from anymore."

Shuddering, she gasped for air with tears running down her cheeks. "No, not that…the shot."

If she would have seen the evil grin on his face she would have ran from the house, but she didn't. The needle entered her arm, pierced her vein, and he injected pure fire into her body. She screamed as the needle left her body, making her writhe around as he stood there and simply looked down on her silently.

Eventually it passed and she curled into a ball, sobbing as she clutched her stomach. "Why, why must you do this to me. We're family Grandpa, family. I love you. Why must you do things like this?"

"Because it is a part of my plan." He growled at her. "Rest Charlie, this will be the last time you have to experience the pain."

"You always say that."

"This will be the last time, I…promise."

"What will it do to me exactly?"

"It will give you speed Grand Daughter. You should already be able to feel the changes happening throughout your body."

Crawling to her feet, she stood up and felt the energy swirling throughout her body and knew that he was telling the truth. "I don't even know how to use it."

"You will learn over time."

"Will you be showing me?"

"…" He nodded and turned. "I'll be in the garage. You will be going out of here in a few hours. I've decided to speed up the time table."

"Alright. I'll go get ready."

"You do that." He snapped. "I'm going out tonight as well."

"How are you going to beat Garrick?"

"I'll…create some distractions to keep him and the others busy."

"I'll be ready in half an hour. My body still hurts." She snarled and stalked out of the room.

"Is my costume still in the closet?"

"Yes Grandpa."

"Good." He hissed, and the real world once again formed before her eyes.

oooooooooo

"AHAAA!" Ranma yelled as he fell off the back of the hover cycle. She saw the bullet miss his head by more than a foot and felt slightly better about the situation. Until she realized that he was going to fall to his death ten stories above the ground anyway.

Cursing, she swung the hover bike around and fired the thrusters to dive at Ranma's falling body. She didn't want him to die, just to leave her alone, so she dove as fast as she could. Even then she knew that she wouldn't be able to catch up with him, she hadn't reacted fast enough. But she had to try.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see the towers of smoke rising above the city as her grandpa created his distraction, and wished him good luck. Then Ranma started to twist his body around as he fell, performing a series of moves in mid air that showed off his martial arts skills. She knew he was one of the speedsters so she was a little confused at first, until she realized that he was spinning against the fall.

He was slowing himself down. Yanking on the handle bars the hover bike she leveled out as Ranma bounced off the side of the building about three stories up. This slowed his fall by nearly half and allowed him to fall to the earth below and land easily enough. He stumbled several steps before he turned to look up at her.

She could see his blue gray eyes piercing through her soul. She just couldn't let him think she was worried about him though. The job needed to be done. "Too bad you made it jerk!"

"Come down here and give yourself up." Ranma yelled.

Snarling, she flicked a toggle on the tank. A small laser fired from the bottom of the hover cycle and nearly took off Ranma's pigtail. He ducked, rolled, and came back up to throw a rock at her. At super speed. It sailed at her like a bullet and she barely dodged out of the way as it hit the side of the hover cycle, which wasn't quite as fast as she was.

Warning alarms went off instantly. It lurched and the thrusters fired an instant later and sent her racing across a nearby parking lot at high speed. "Ah &#$!"

Ranma's eyes narrowed just as he shot after her in a blur of colors, leaving a trail of electricity in his wake. Reading Johnny Quick's journals gave him quite a few ideas about how to use his Speed. The man wouldn't believe in the speed force itself, instead he believed in the science of the Speed. Giving him quite a few ideas on manipulating speed.

He hadn't really thought about giving the rock a boost with the Speed Force, but he did it automatically, without thought.

He would have to remember that little trick along with several others, including some thoughts on the true source of speed when he got a chance. So as Ranma ran he focused on the air around him and forced to flow around him as he ran. Another of Quick's ideas. This allowed him to run faster than ever with only half the effort.

The parking lot was mostly empty as Kid Rocket struggled to regain control of the hover bike, but the thrusters were firing at full power, propelling her at over a hundred miles an hour, and accelerating. Gritting her teeth she reached for her gun and aimed it at the thruster.

If it wouldn't shut down she would break it. She yanked the hover cycle to the side and dodged a parked car, burning a stripe across its hood. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the boy running after her, moving so fast that his after image was streaking behind him, charged with electricity.

She shuddered as a chill ran down her spine and gasped for air. Just the thought that he was trying to save her touched her quite a bit. He was catching up with her a lot faster than she expected and it would only be a short while before he caught up with her, maybe she wouldn't have to shoot the thruster after all.

The hover bike suddenly lurched to the side as it caught the front edge of a car's windshield, right before it nearly wiped out against the fence at the edge of the parking lot. The sudden shift caught her by surprise and she dropped her guns before she could react. Screaming, she yanked the cycle to side with all she had in a panic. The bike rolled and plowed into the ground with a crunch of metal. She lost her grip and flew off the bike.

Electricity surged from her eyes as she sailed through the air. She unconsciously rolled into a ball in an attempt to save herself when she hit the ground. Then a warm comforting feeling enveloped her as all movement seemed to stop for a split second. She opened her eyes and found that Ranma had caught her before she hit the ground.

"Hold on, I'm moving too fast to stop quickly." Ranma said, energy flowing from his eyes, around his head, and behind him as he moved.

Charlie wrapped her arms around his torso as the air around them crackled with energy, streaming by at incredible speeds. She wasn't sure how fast they were going, but it was fast enough that she could make out the cars in the road as they dodged around them at high speed and left them in dust in the blink of an eye.

Ranma was concentrating as hard as he could as he left the parking lot, cruising around the city. He finally managed to slow down and skid to a stop at the very edge of town. Kneeling down he sat Charlie on the ground and gasped for air as the insane run finally caught up with him.

"You okay?" he asked.

Wide eyed, Charlie realized that she was safe and alive. "How?"

Ranma managed to control his breathing a little before he replied. "I charged the air around me and created a kind of cushion of air. It protected you, but created a slipstream that made me to run at a much faster rate of speed than usual. Johnny Quick came up with the idea a long time ago."

Charlie staggered to her feet, well aware that she didn't have any of her weapons on her anymore. "Thank you for saving me."

"No problem."

"I can't let you take me in."

"You hurt those people, I have to take you in." Ranma insisted and realized that he should have just taken the girl straight to the Police station.

"I didn't hurt them, they were just knocked out by a sonic barrage from the bike."

"I don't care. You broke into the building and need to pay for your crimes."

Charlie stomped her foot. "You heroes are all the same. You won't listen to people. You jump to conclusions, don't any of you ever think!"

"I know what I saw, including all those dead bodies!" Ranma yelled. "I won't ignore the dead! You're responsible to for some of them and will pay for those deaths!"

Charlie snorted. "I haven't killed anyone."

"Someone is running around Keystone killing people all over the city and you're a part of this. Now let's go." Ranma said and reached for Charlie's arm.

"Liar!" Charlie snarled. "My grandpa is a good person! He wants revenge on Garrick for ruining his life, not to kill anybody!"

Ranma blinked. "Your grandpa…I've seen the bodies girl, they litter the streets under each of those columns of smoke. Someone using the speed force killed them."

"I won't believe you." Charlie snapped. "I know my Grandfather wouldn't kill someone like that. It's why he created slow gas and sonic stunners, so that people wouldn't die."

Growling, Ranma lunged for the girl with super speed, but she jerked back even faster. "Wha…"

"I can use super speed as well, I just haven't had time to learn how yet."

"I don't care. I'll show you what is going on even if I have to pick you up and drag you there myself."

"You wouldn't dare."

Ranma smirked as electricity surged from his eyes. "Oh yes I would."

oooooooooo

The forest belonged to a park at the edge of Keystone City and covered nearly twenty five acres of land and was one of the more over grown wooded areas in the state. It was a perfect place for Batman to store the Batwing while in Keystone. He was also on the investors that helped create the park in the first place.

He arrived at the edge of the park and knelt down in the shadows and saw the rising columns of smoke rising above the city, he was to late. Either that or something else was going on that he wasn't aware of. Even worse, it had taken him far to long to get here and it would force him to move around in the day light.

"Batman."

Spinning around he drew a batrang, but stopped before he could throw it.  
"Max Mercury."

The aging speedster looked him over. "What are you doing here. Are you involved in these murders?"

"No, but I am investigating some thefts…"

"Including some of the items that belonged to Wayne Enterprises in Gotham City. Still, I'm surprised to see you here."

Batman didn't relax or even answer.

"There is a madman in the city using the Speed Force to blow people and things up. It would be best if you left and let us deal with it."

"Not a chance."

"That wasn't a request." Max growled, he knew just how stubborn Batman could be.

"I'm not leaving." Batman growled. "This involves my City. I will find the cause and deal with it."

Max Mercury also knew that dealing with Batman could be a chore at times. The man was a control freak, had to be involved in everything, and it was nearly impossible to stop him from interfering. "This isn't your City Batman, you…"

"I don't care about your City, only that it involves Gotham. Now get out of my way." Batman said and reached for something in his belt and knelt down a little.

"Maybe I should just take you back to Gotham instead. It would only take a second. Even a little less if I went faster than a jog."

Batman's eyes narrowed.

Then the world turned purple around them. A being appeared right beside Max, bathed in purple energy and arcing like a Tesla Coil. Its arm lashed out with a burst of speed force and took Max across the chin before he could even move. Sending Max's head slamming to the side, his body bathed in purple lightning.

Screaming in pain he collapsed to the ground convulsing as the electricity nearly electrocuted him on the spot. At the same time Batman just reacted, sending the batrang at the thing, but it exploded almost a foot from the man. Its head slowly turned to look at Batman.

"Interesting, I didn't expected to show up."

"I won't let you get away." Batman snapped as he stalked forward.

"You are a weak a pathetic fool Batman. This situation has nothing to do with you. Leave, or I'll kill you where you stand."

"Do you even know who I am?"

"I don't care who you are."

The man seemed shocked for a second before he started laughing. "Oh I like you."

"You're old and that will be my advantage." Batman said, casually distracting the thing as he reached into his belt from inside his cape.

Max suddenly groaned and the man turned to look glance in his direction. "Time to finish my business. I put those Wayne Tech parts to good use. The vehicle I created should be on the other side of the city if you want to go and retrieve them." Electricity suddenly flared around the man again. "Time to go Batman, this has been an honor."

Batman lunged forward, throwing a flash bomb into the thing's face. The bright burst of light lasted for a brief second, but it's was enough to catch the scum off guard. Moving with the speed of experience, Batman managed to connect with several blows to the criminals body.

Each blow made his fists arch with electricity. His costume was insulated against that kind of thing though and gave him no damage at all. The man collapsed to the ground for a second, rolled to his feet, and flared with energy as he lunged forward.

A thousand blows rained down on Batman's body and sent him crashing to the ground. Batman tried to climb back to his feet just as a foot moving at super speed connected with his jaw. It was like being punched by Bane at full strength. Something Batman wasn't ready for after taking all the other hits.

"This is turning out to be quite a day indeed. The Heroes are coming out of the woodwork, but I expected that to happen eventually. Now it's time to finish this little game once and for all." The being said with an evil smirk.

With a burst of electricity he headed back into the city in a blur of purple energy. Seconds later another explosion rocked filled the air, quickly followed by screams and sirens. Even after he left, the battered bodies of Max Mercury and Batman lay on the ground, unmoving.

oooooooooo

Looking off in the distance Ranma could see that something else was happening on the other side of the city, but with Kid Rocket thrown over is shoulder, he didn't think heading in that direction would be a good idea. She might be hurt and she really didn't know how to use her speed abilities yet.

He knew that The Flash was taking care of it so he wasn't worried. It bothered him just a little that he was starting to get used to this super hero junk though. He raced down the street, weaved past cars and emergency vehicles, and came to a stop. Kid Rocket squirmed out of his grip and turned around to glare at the scene in front of them.

"Is this your proof?" She snapped.

Ranma didn't say anything as he glanced over to a group of workers loading five burned corpses into a black van. "Those are."

"Their dead, so what?"

"That other speedster did it."

"My grandfather would never do anything like this!" She yelled. "I've been telling you that."

"Maybe, but he's doing something to cause all this."

"How do you know it's him?"

"Who else could it be? You told me that he was causing the fires as a distraction. Well your hover bike is down and he's still causing havoc throughout the city. There is no one else around that could be doing these things." Ranma blinked a few times and wondered where all that came from.

Kid Rocket glanced at the bodies as they were zipped into bags and shuddered a little. She could recall the times when she really wondered if her grandpa truly cared for her. Sometimes he showed her his true feelings. And sometimes he could be the devil himself.

She hung her head. "If he is doing…this, I have to stop him."

"No, we will."

"We?"

Ranma nodded. "You need a little training, but if we catch him fast enough

we just might be able to bring him in."

"Grandfather would never survive prison."

"He has to be stopped." Ranma insisted.

"We have to find him first."

A sonic boom echoed over the city, startling both of them.

"Well that was ominous." Ranma muttered. It also reminded him that he needed to keep up his inner vibrations, to keep the people from identifying him after all this was over. A quick check and he nodded, he was vibrating instinctively and didn't need to worry.

oooooooooo

Jay Garrick raced into the city at full speed, examining every inch in less than a second of real time. Every park, building, and road in the city. A worried look crossed his face as he tried to figure out what his enemy's next move would be.

He stopped several petty crimes as he raced, a couple of muggers, a drug deal, what looked like a kidnapping. The police quickly arrived at each scene and took over for him, but he still couldn't figure out where his enemy could be. He crossed the bridge and did a site by site search of each of the buildings throughout Central City.

Even that turned out to be a bust as he came to a stop in front of the Flash Museum. There was something evil in the air that set his nerves on alert, but he just couldn't figure out what the exact cause was. He shot forward at full speed again, running back and forth across the city looking for anything weird that might give him a clue.

It was then that he first started to notice the explosions rocking the city and the fires burning out of control. Barely two minutes later he started to find the bodies. Some of them were burned, others appeared to have detonated as they were walking along and covered the sidewalks and streets in blood.

The grotesque sight angered him.

"Edward!" Jay screamed as he looked down at the smoldering body of a teenager.

The air around whole area suddenly started to charge with energy as Jay stood there looking for his enemy. A form appeared right in front of him gaining shape as supercharged static electricity swirled around his purple form that mimicked Jays outfit, even the hat. As it died down Edward Clariss, The Rival, looked down on Jay Garrick with pure hate in his eyes.

"Call. Me. Rival!" The old man screamed into Jay's face.

"Edward, I can't believe you would do this."

Rival sneered and screamed at Jay. "You ruined my life Garrick, destroyed it completely and then forgot about me as if I was NOTHING! I've been planning this for years!"

"It was forty years ago!" Jay yelled. "One short fight and then it was over.  
Look at all these people you've killed."

"They are nothing Jay Garrick, their death's are your fault anyway. It may have been one short fight for you, but not for me. That little fight destroyed my career, made me a laughing stock, and made it impossible for me to even get a job." Rival yelled, energy escaping from his eyes as he started to circle around Jay. "I've been forced to learn whole new levels of science just to survive. Perfecting my chemistry till I was one of the best in the world and still I couldn't get a job. I'm also one of the best engineers in the world and I can't hold a job longer than week because of my past. All because of you."

"You brought it on yourself!" Jay yelled back. "Your jealously and stupidity are what brought you down. Your own actions!"

Rival's eyes seemed to shrink down pinpricks as he stood there. His anger washing of him in waves of energy. "No! You are the one that started all his. You! And I'll make you pay for your actions a thousand times over!"

"Edward…" Jay's head exploded with pain as Rival punched him at supersonic speeds. He staggered backwards, but managed to keep his footing.

"Edward Clariss is dead Garrick. He died in prison after you sent him there to rot. The only thing left is The Rival. My son is dead because of you and pretty soon my grand Daughter will take my place. I've trained her my whole life and she will take down all your friends. Starting with that new recruit you picked up the other day."

Ignoring his throbbing head, Jay ground his teeth as he listened to Rival talk. "Ranma can talk care of himself. He hasn't even decided if he will even become a hero or not. I've just been teaching him how to control his new power."

"He will die Garrick, because he is close to you." Rival sneered.

"I won't let you hurt anyone else Rival." Jay snarled, his anger was rising to a slow boil.

Rival laughed. "I've been planning this for years Garrick. I've set it in motion and I don't even have to be there to make sure it keeps going. By the end of day everyone you know will be dead, just one among a mountain of bodies as Keystone City burns to the ground."

Boom, Boom, Boooom!

Jay ground his teeth a little more as explosions went off all across the city, small ones, big ones, even a couple of monster ones. "What did you do?"

"I've been planting explosive devices for weeks. I even planted several of them in your precious museum Garrick. By now it's a smoldering ruin." Rival sneered evilly and started laughing. "I was there the day you showed up with that brat in tow and you didn't even see me."

With a burst of electricity, Jay shot forward and attacked Rival. The old man just flowed around Jay with ease, but not before he tripped him. Sending Jay into the ground at a hundred miles an hour. Rival started cackling insanely.

"Pathetic idiot, you aren't even a match for me anymore! Even Flash or any of those other morons couldn't stop me. I've dealt with them all! Flash is across town fighting a big yellow space alien, the same one that took out Coast City…"

"Mongul…" Jay gasped.

"Quick's daughter is trying to save her building from collapsing, Mercury is out cold along with that Batman idiot over in the park, and my grand daughter is taking care of your protégé. And it gets even better. That other brat is running his tail off across the city trying to save all the people from dying. Leaving us to ourselves so that I can slaughter you properly."

"Rival, I'm warning you…"

"Then it gets even better." Rival continued, interrupting Jay. "I've placed the biggest bomb in the city right under your house. Poor Joan won't know what hit her when it goes off here in a few minutes. Kaboom, so long wife, your family, everything you ever cared about. Just. Like. Me!"

Jay lit up and raced across the area, but Rival was next to him in an instant with an evil sneer on his face. "You don't think you can out run me with my speed enhanced by Telaxia do you? I can run circles around you or anyone in this city."

They left waves of electricity in their wake as they shot across the city.  
Jay ignored Rival and doubled his speed, setting off a sonic boom that shattered two blocks of windows and set off multiple care alarms. Rival didn't even seem to have trouble keeping up with him at all.

"You're going to be to late you know, just a few seconds left."

"I'll save her."

"I hold all the cards Garrick. I've won."

"Never!" Jay yelled as he bore down and shot several yards ahead of Rival.

"How do you know I haven't already killed her while you were running around the city!" Rival yelled.

Jay nearly lost his footing and crashed, but managed to regain control. "Because you want me to see her die."

"I'm not some show boat rogue Garrick. I just want you to suffer!"

"She's alive!" Jay yelled.

Rival started to laugh as he caught up with Jay, glanced at him, and passed him in a millionth of a second. "But will she be alive by the time you arrive!"

The first flash could only gape as Rival started to pull away from him at a steadily increasing speed. "Gods, no…"

"Time to Race, Garrick! I'll run you into the ground and kill everything you care for!" Rival yelled, an insane glint in his eye.

oooooooooo

Groaning, Max Mercury sat up clutching his. It felt like something was pounding him over the head with a sledgehammer and refused to let up for even an instant. Resisting the urge to wince, Max slowly looked around and realized that he was still in the park. He spotted Batman unconscious in the grass a few yards away.

He quickly knelt down beside the man and checked for a pulse. Breathing a sight of relief when he found one, he stood up and looked around to see if Rival was still hanging around, but didn't see him anywhere. Batman's plane was still hidden in the underbrush, covered in its camouflage netting, so at least that was still in one piece.

Glancing at Batman again, he considered waking him up for a second before deciding against it. Batman didn't need to be here and he'd just get in the way as he tried to help out anyway. Sitting down and crossing his legs, Max started meditating and slowly accessing his connection to the speed force. Over the years he could remember learning his most interesting secrets this way.

The only person that ever surpassed him was Barry Allen, who could do things with the speed force that even Wally wasn't able to achieve. The most notable achievement was Barry's ability to run faster than the speed of light without entering the speed force. Moving faster than light played hell with the senses and the man did it without a second thought, pure genius.

Today's speedsters just didn't seem to be able to touch Barry's shadow, though he thought that either Bart or Ranma just might do it if they put a little effort into their training. The kids looked at the speed force differently than the rest of them did. The rest of the speedsters seemed to be restricted by what they believed was and wasn't possible. Wally's problem with his speed, always losing it for short periods of time, was a classic example of mind over matter.

Ranma, a complete novice, was now capable of things that Wally couldn't do on his best day. Although Wally wasn't aware of it just yet. The boy seemed to just do the impossible in an instant. Even now the only thing holding Ranma back was himself and that wouldn't last to much longer. The kid was a natural. Max considered this as he finally reached the state he wanted and touched the speed force. A surge of energy filled him instantly.

A white glow started to radiate out from his body as he sat there and directed the speed force. When a speedster was using their speed it left an imprint on the speed force that could easily be tracked if they were running fast enough. He quickly spotted what he was looking for and focused in on two signatures racing across the city.

The one in front was Rival, his dark aura and purple costume made him stand out like a light in the darkness. Just a little ways behind him was Jay Garrick, pushing himself to the limits of his speed. Jay was over sixty and hadn't slowed down much over the years, but Max could see that he was holding back for some reason.

"What are you doing Jay?" Max muttered to himself.

Then something else caught his attention and he turned away from the two men to see that speed force at their starting point was swirling out of control. It nearly made Max lose his concentration as he looked at it in shock. Whatever was causing it had to be incredibly powerful.

Like a black hole, the effect seemed to be sucking in the speed force in large amounts and slowly growing. A cold sweat broke out all over his body as he forced himself to come out of the trance. Shivering a little, he stood up and glanced around. He was relieved to see that Batman was still unconscious. With any luck they would be able to clear this mess up in a hurry.

Shaking his head, Max sighed and realized that just ignoring Batman would be a bad idea. He moved back over to the man and knelt down to shake him a little. The man did have a strong pulse, so he figured that he may just be asleep at this point. "Hey, wake up."

Batman groaned and reached up to clutch his head. Then he sat up and looked around. "Mercury, what happened to that…thing?"

"Rival wasn't here when I woke up. Jay seems to be chasing him across the city at the moment."

"How?"

"We all have our secrets." Max said with a smirk that Batman found familiar.

Grunting, Batman jumped to his feet and made his way over to the Batjet. After opening a compartment in the back, he removed a flat backpack and pulled it one. "Come on, we need to get above that maniac and stop him."

"Maybe, but we may have to deal with something else instead."

"What?" Batman snapped.

"Something in the middle of town. I'm not sure what it is, but its causing a disturbance in the speed force and that can only mean trouble."

"Then let's go. Garrick can take care of himself."

Max nodded. "We may need to find Impulse and Flash to give us a hand."

"Flash is occupied."

"I'd heard. We could still use his help."

"I agree, but he's fighting Mongul right now and has his hands full." Batman said, his voice cold, and emotionless. He glanced at Max Mercury as he finished connecting his backpack. "Lets go."

A pair of solid wings spread out from under his cape and a rocket fired, launching Batman into the sky. With a half spin, Batman headed towards the center of the city. Cursing, Max chased after him a half a second later.  
With any luck he'd run across Bart before he arrived.

oooooooooo

Ranma shook his head. He was feeling a little weird again and this time his whole body felt like it was turning weightless. Charlie was still with him as they visited the tenth massacre scene in the last five minutes. The girl's opinion was wavering, but she just refused to believe that her grandfather could do something like this.

He could understand really, but it was a bit much to take things this far.  
"He's the only one that could be doing these things Charlie."

"He isn't a killer!" She yelled and nearly started to cry.

Suddenly Ranma felt something, a force of energy heading right for them. He grabbed Charlie and pulled her to the side and let the speed force envelope them. In an instant they were vibrating at high speeds and the world came to a stand still, except for two people racing by at a slightly slower speed. Ranma wasn't even aware of what he'd done.

Beside him Charlie could only gape at her grandfather as he raced by as if he was in slow motion, a halo of purple energy surrounding him. He was yelling at Jay Garrick several paces back, his words slightly distorted by the speed he was moving at.

"Come on old man, you'll never save her now!"

"Rival! Stop this madness!"

"Never!"

Ranma watched them run by almost in shock as he began to realize what he'd just done.

"Grandpa…" Charlie whispered. "See, he's not doing any…"

Rival curved and suddenly raced through a group of people on the other side of the street. They could all hear Jay's scream as Rival passed through them. Then Ranma and Charlie watched as several of the people just detonated like bombs in slow motion.

"NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Charlie screamed.

Ranma just stared at the destruction with cold eyes. "He has to be stopped.  
Tell me how to stop him!"

Charlie was starting to panic as her world started to crumble around her. "IDON'TKNOWIDON'TKNOW!

"Tell me!" Ranma yelled.

Crying, Charlie dropped out of the speed field curled up on the sidewalk.

Eyes flaring with energy, Ranma shot after Jay and left Charlie where she fell. Ranma couldn't ever remember running this fast in his life, but something told him that he could go even faster. Leaning forward his aura flared out just a little more and he started to steadily increase speed with every step.

He gritted his teeth and felt the speed force surrounding his body as he ran, protecting his clothing and pushing him to ever faster speeds. Then Ranma stopped thinking about running completely, he just needed to catch up with Jay and the monster.

"AAAGGHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Multiple sonic booms echoed over the city an instant later. Ranma wasn't thinking about this as a race anymore, it was a battle, something he excelled at. Even as he started to catch up with Jay thousands of battle plans rushed through his speed force enhanced brain.

That monster was going to pay for killing all those people even if Ranma had to rip the psychopaths legs off with his bare hands. Anything goes Martial Arts combined with the Speed Force gave him a brand new style. Moves raced through his head and combined into kata he could practice later. He suddenly understood every aspect of his training, and even the confusing parts of Johnny Quick's journals.

It all combined into a whole new form of knowledge and in that instant Ranma was side by side with Jay Garrick.

"Jay."

Jay nearly tripped as he heard Ranma's voice and looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "Ranma, you…look different."

"Whatever." Ranma said.

"I've never seen an aura like that before."

"Just tell me how to stop that monster." Ranma growled.

"He's going after Joan, to kill her."

"No. He. Won't!" Ranma yelled.

"Ranma, save Joan. Let me take care of Rival."

"He deserves to die!"

"We don't kill! Ever!" Jay yelled.

"Pray it's the correct decision." Ranma said coldly.

"It always is, no matter what."

Ranma increased his running pace and shot forward, easily passing Jay and caught up with Rival a few paces later. "I should kill you right here."

"You Heroes don't have the balls to kill kid."

"There is a first time for everything."

"Go for kid." Rival snapped, confident that Ranma wouldn't do anything.

For a second Ranma seriously considered it, but he could see Jay just off to the side catching up with them while Rival focused on Ranma. "I think you belong to someone else, geezer." Ranma said with a smirk and suddenly passed the old man, pulling ahead of him easily. A distance that quickly increased as the picoseconds passed.

"What!" Rival yelled as Ranma passed by. "No one is faster than I am! No one!"

"Then keep up slow poke!" Ranma yelled back. He barely noticed as they suddenly raced across the river that separated Keystone City and Central city, only to head back into Keystone several miles down the river in the blink of an eye. They were on the other side before the surface tension of the water even reacted to their presence, sending a tower of water a hundred feet into the air.

"Kid you are so dead!" Rival screamed.

Ranma flipped him off and smirked. "Bring it on!"

"Aghaaaaa!"

"I got you now Edward!" Jay yelled and took a swing at Rival.

Out of the corner of his eye Ranma could see Jay and Rival attempting to fight each other as they ran, throwing the occasional punch at each other. Trying to trip each other at super speed and shove them into a stationary object. Then Ranma was racing down Jay's street and he spotted Joan standing by the mail box, unaware of what was happening.

"Time for her to die!" Rival yelled.

"No she's not!" Ranma yelled back.

Rival gave him a startled look and realized he'd forgotten about the other speedster with them as Garrick distracted him. "AGHAAAA!" The purple speedster screamed in rage and reached into his belt to pull out a small device. He smirked evilly.

Ranma wasn't even paying attention to Rival as he moved closer and closer to Joan. They were moving so fast that the outside world wasn't even aware that they were around. The whole Run had taken less than fifteen seconds in real time anyways.

"No!" Jay yelled and dove at Rival just as he fired the small object.

"I win!" Rival screamed and started laughing.

Joan suddenly went from standing still to moving at super speed. She didn't even have time to scream as Ranma suddenly changed directions, doing a hundred and eighty degree turn with the twist of his foot. Half a blink later they were fifteen feet in the air and sailing through the air.

Rival's shot missed by more than foot and Jay crashed into him like a missile before he could do anything about it. They both crashed into the ground, still moving at super speed, creating a trench of dirt several feet deep as they came to a stop over two blocks away.

Joan was finally able to scream as Ranma twisted in mid air and landed on a roof of a house next door. His aura flared to release the speed force from around them. This sent a burst of wind flying in all directions and to the people round the neighborhood they just appeared there from out of nowhere.

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief.

"You can stop screaming."

Jay's wife shut up and blinked a few times. "Oh, that was a little too exciting."

Ranma smirked as he sat her down on the roof shingles. "Yeah, a little."

"What happened?"

"That purple guy over there tried to kill you." Ranma explained with a shrug. "Jay called him Rival."

Joan nodded. She was used to think like this even though she didn't get involved in the fights that often. "You go help Jay, I'll use the roof hatch to get back into the house and call Linda."

She seemed safe enough, so Ranma nodded and jumped to the ground. Starting at the mailbox and running halfway down the block was a trench dug right into the asphalt. At the end Jay and Rival were laying on top of each other. Ranma raced over and quickly pulled Jay to the side.

"Jay, you okay?"

The old man groaned, but didn't wake up. Ranma could see a gash along side his head, just behind the ear that was forming into a bump. Cursing under his breath, he ripped the sleeve off his shirt and applied it to the wound. Jay would be out for at least a couple of hours.

"This isn't good." He muttered to himself.

Rival didn't seem to be that injured either. Every couple of seconds a bit of speed force lightning would arc around the man's body. He would only be out cold for a few minutes. Picking Jay up, Ranma raced back to the house and placed him on the couch. Joan was just gettingback into the house from the roof. She made her way over to the phone as Ranma finished placing Jay on the couch.

"With Jay down, can you stop him?" She asked. No one was answering at Wally's place, so she put the phone down. She would have to try again later.

Ranma glanced out the window and saw Rival slowly getting to his knees. "I'll have to, everyone else is busy."

Moving over to Jay, Joan reached one of the man's pockets and pulled out a black ring. She handed it to Ranma. "Every member of the flash family has one of these Ranma. There's a costume inside the ring, just hit that little catch there and the costume will spring out. Use your speed the get dressed so that no one else recognizes you."

He frowned. "I…"

"I know being a superhero isn't what you want to do, but the costume will hide your identity easier than Jay's vibration trick. The costume will also work better than your normal clothes." Joan said. "Those clothes you're wearing aren't in the best of shape either."

Ranma glanced down and noticed for the first time that pushing himself to move so fastcaused his clothing to shred themselves. His shirt and pants hung off him in rags, even smoking a little from all the friction. He wasn't to worried about his identity though, Jay had taught him how to vibrate in such a way as to keep his features blurred.

"I'll give it a shot, I guess." Ranma said, touched the ring and the costume jumped out. He blurred and stood there wearing a pure black costume, just the like the Flash's costume. Red lightning designs decorated his waist, shoulders, and forearms. His mask/hood was also down.

"You look great."

He grinned a little. "Well at least it's the right mix of colors."

"Indeed, now you need to go. Rival is nearly up." She said, pointing out the window.

Reaching back, Ranma pulled the mask up and over his face and let the material stretch around his head. Turning, raced around the room and out the front door in a slow burst of speed. Ranma accelerated towards Rival as the man came to his feet and shook his head.

"Garrick…" He growled, just as Ranma's forearm clothes-lined him from behind.  
Rival yelled in shock and in the blink of an eye they were several blocks away, Ranma slowed down, and let Rival fly forward and tumble along the ground.

Rival rolled a few times and eventually came to his feet with a burst of speed force. The man's eyes lit up with energy as he turned to glare at Ranma. It didn't phase Ranma as he calmly walked towards the man. He knew Rival would go down today.

"You." Snarled Rival.

"That's right."

"What's with the change of clothes?"

"Felt like a change."

"You aren't even fully trained kid, you haven't earned a costume yet."

"Jay thought otherwise." Ranma said simply.

Rival growled, he wasn't going to let some kid ruin decades of planning. Jay Garrick was going to die today, no matter what. "I'll have to kill you then, no big loss."

This just made Ranma snort and taunted him. "Yeah right slow poke, I can out run you with ease."

"You little brat!"

He shot forward at full speed. Ranma almost flowed around the hundreds of punches that Rival threw at him. Then he reached out and caught the man's arm and shoulder threw him into the ground. "Pathetic, old man. I've seen pandas fight better than you."

Rolling to the side and to his feet, Rival attacked again and again. Each time Ranma would kick, block, punch, or just throw him after a few seconds. Rival was getting frustrated. He'd never dreamed that anyone could be faster than he could, especially not some punk kid could.

"I'll kill you!"

Ranma yawned. "Yeah right, now let's get you to jail before I die of boredom."

Just as he was about to attack again something on Rival's belt started to beep. He pulled a thin card out of his pocket and grinned. "Finally."

"This isn't time to play cards, Eddy." Ranma said, moving forward again. "Time to stop playing around."

"You got that right brat, the final part of my plan just went into effect and Garrick isn't here to stop it. He's the only one that could." Rival started cackling.

With a burst of energy a purple blur raced towards the center of town. Ranma shot after him, but the short distance wasn't enough to time to allow him to catch up. Rival came to a stop at the edge of an empty lot full of weeds and discarded junk.

He made sure Ranma was there to see as he pulled the little card out and pointed it at the lot. Ranma staggered as his senses went haywire for a couple of seconds, sound became color, and smells became sight. The world went tilt and Ranma fell to his knees.

The lot shimmered and a pair of massive antennas appeared. One on each side of the lot and between them was a massive vortex of energy. Ranma's senses slowly returned to normal, but it gave Rival time to walk over to him. He knelt down and grabbed him by the hair.

"Listen here brat, see what's in that lot? It's been charging since this morning, since before I sent my Granddaughter out to kill you. It's a speed force collector. The more you use the speed force inside the city, the more it collects and sends to me. Making me faster, stronger, and more powerful than ever before.

"I have a direct link to its energy reserves now. That little disorientation you just experienced was you losing about eighty percent of your speed." Rival let go and let Ranma's head fall to the ground with a thump. "This city is mine."

Ranma didn't want to believe the raving lunatic, but he felt weak, weaker than ever before. He grit his teeth as he came to his feet and noticed that the speed force wasn't working like it usually did. "I don't need speed to beat you."

Rival laughed. "Yes you do, but I'll just leave you here to suffer. I have to find out what happened to my grand daughter after all. She failed and that means I'll have to punisher her."

He heard a weird sound off to the side and turned his head just as something small and black flew by and slammed into Rival's chest. It exploded and sent Rival flying off his feet. He landed several yards away, only to bounce a few times before coming to a stop in the gutter.

It wasn't to much of a surprise when Rival rolled back to his feet with a snarl. "Batman! My speed field is strong enough to render all of your weapons useless!"

Batman, wearing a jet pack flew down from the sky and landed next to Ranma as the wings retracted. He stalked forward and even in his dazed state Ranma recognized some serous martial arts training in the man's walk. He grinned a little.

As usual, Batman wasn't one to talk while fighting. He just waded in, jumping at Rival as he sent a barrage of exploding batrangs at the man. Along with the special equipment, Ranma recognized an adaptation of several techniques he'd been taught a couple years back by some old fart near a volcano.

Forcing himself to move, Ranma pulled on the speed force as best he could and slowly started to feel more like himself. He would have to help in some way. Batrangs fell all around Rival, exploding along the pavement, walls, and even against his speed force field. As a chemist he instantly recognized several of the colored gasses that started to surround him. He would never be caught that easily.

Reaching into his belt he pulled out a couple of ampules and tossed them on the ground. He then blurred as Batman tried to catch him by surprise. Three things happened at once. The ampule exploded and quickly nullified the gasses around them, Rival grabbed Batman's arm, and the whole area exploded in a fire ball.

Yelling out in shock, Ranma rolled away as Batman sacrificed his arm to distract Rival long enough to light a match, igniting the gasses. The fire ball rose into the air before it fell back and washed over the street.

Ranma could hear a scream within the fire, but he also saw a dark blur as Batman ran out of the fire, cradling a broken arm. Then a blue and white blur appeared next to Ranma and patted him in the shoulder. "Hey Max."

"Ranma? Jay gave you the costume?"

"Joan did." Ranma said.

"Interesting, let's get this guy stopped and where's Jay?"

Ranma shook his head. "Rival did something to mess up my speed, I can barely move. Jay was injured and I left him at the house."

"You can't run?"

"No, I can barely stand. It's starting to annoy me actually."

"You access the speed force kid, just reach out and touch it." Max explained.

"I've been trying to. It has something to do with that thing over there"  
Ranma said, pointing at the vortex.

Max glanced at it and nodded. "It's an artificial link to the speed force I think. I can feel it trying to tap into my speed as well, but I have enough control over my abilities to keep it from accessing them."

"Tell me how."

"It just takes will power kid."

Ranma frowned, closed his eyes, and dug deep into his mind. He understood that it took will power. Many situations came down to a life or die choice, this was one of them. He could sense something building around Rival.

Off to the side Batman took a second to set his arm and make a splint for his arm, using one hand and his teeth to tie it in place. He made his way over to Max Mercury. "That maniac needs to be stopped."

Max nodded. "True, but rushing in won't do us any good."

"Maybe not, but I'll keep trying till he goes down." Batman said with no emotion. "He does seem to have disappeared though."

"He's circling around us at high speed." Max said. "But I'm not sure why, he doesn't seem to be doing anything else."

"How can you tell?" Batman snapped.

"Rival is channeling massive amounts of the speed force, but he's not doing it correctly. He's forcing it to do what he wants instead of willing it to do what he wants, so he's only able to go so fast. That difference is making his signature easy to follow."

Batman narrowed his eyes at Max.

Seeming to understand what the glare meant, Max just shrugged. "Me and the Original Flash have decades of experience on Wally. The boy is good, but he's always holding back and it slows him down. I've had to track several speedsters in the past."

The Dark Knight turned his glare on Ranma, as if assessing him. Ranma was surprised to see that the man had perfected the technique known as the Mask of Death. To fight the enemy and never show nothing but cold emotion, locking away all feelings, and getting the job done at any cost or sacrifice. It was a very dangerous technique to learn because it required minor Ki manipulation abilities to keep it under control.

Under Batman's glare, Ranma opened his eyes and felt the speed force fill his body once more and he grinned in triumph. He wasn't back to full speed, but he could run again and his confidence was returning. The jerk wasn't about to beat him in a fight, no matter how many tricks he pulled.

Wearing a midnight black costume with red lightning decorations and grinning made him look completely evil. Even his mask's eye holes were covered in a red lens that kept the wind out of his eyes, glowing slightly in the dark to allow him to see in low light conditions.

Black and red lightning swirled around him for the first time, making Batman and Max jump back in shock. Using the same Mask of Death, Ranma assessed the situation without emotion and made a decision.

"Rival has over stayed his welcome and has gone over the line too far to forgive, killing means nothing to him, and the that leaves everyone in danger. Batman, those towers over there are channeling his extra power somehow, he said so himself. Can you take them down with those explosives of yours?"

"Yes."

"Do so." Ranma ordered coldly, matching even Batman's frosty orders. Max was more than a little impressed. "Me and Max will take down the madman."

"Good." Batman growled and headed for the towers and the vortex of energy.

oooooooooo

Ranma and Max Mercury raced out of the area as Batman got to work. Max led them through several short cuts as they tried to catch up with Rival. As they ran, Ranma came up with a plan. "I've got an idea, but it may not work."

"What do you have in mind?"

"Leading him right into the speed force, just like that Savant guy that caused Flash so many problems."

Max frowned. "It's too dangerous. It'll catch you too. Going that fast could send you bouncing through time if you have any doubts in your heart at all kid, I know from experience."

"It's you that gave me the idea. Rival will eventually be the only one that can access the speed force if his vortex continues."

"Batman will take care of it."

"Maybe, but I don't know him very well. He doesn't seem to care about people, only doing his job, and that attitude of his will get him killed eventually."

"What makes you say that?"

"Batman is using a Ki technique without understanding what Ki is or how to use it. He accesses his Ki subconsciously at best, giving him only a slight boost. His mind is closed and won't accept what Ki is, he doesn't believe in it."

"Neither do I."

"Yeah, but you don't use Ki to fight like I do Max, he does. He's been using his Ki to shut down his emotions for years so he can dress up as a bat and be mean to people. His emotions are dying, buried under cold unfeeling logic. Soon he won't even be able to function as a human being. I've read horror stories of men like him that all ended in disaster."

"He's all we got right now." Max said, though he privately agreed with Ranma.

"Yeah, but we may need to have a little talk with him eventually, he doesn't have very far to go before he loses his ability to feel any emotion at all, no sorrow, no happiness, nothing."

"Focus on Rival, we need to stop him first."

Ranma nodded. "I just think Batman will become an even bigger danger than Rival."

Max didn't say anything, but he'd known Batman for a long time and knew Ranma was right. "Rival now, Batman tomorrow."

Ranma grinned. "Why not, now let's show Rival that there are speeds that even he hasn't touched yet."

"Can you go that fast? He is still drawing on your speed."

"No problem, I can get that fast, but Batman has to take down the tower before I can maintain it for longer than a few seconds. That's why I need you."

"I don't understand."

"Lend me your speed to give me a boost to sub light speed. Once the tower goes down, I can get Rival into the speed force and let him become of it."

"I don't like this Ranma."

"I won't stay in the Force, just a short visit and I'll come back."

"Wally needed an anchor, his girlfriend Linda to make it back."

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, but I don't need one. I'm connected to the speed force now, I can enter it whenever I want. I can even use it in ways that Wally never has. I have listened to your stories after all."

With a slow nod, Max focused on Rival and the two of them adjusted their speed to match up with him. They spotted him racing out of the city, heading for the countryside. Ranma could see him fiddling with the card-sized remote he used to turn on the vortex earlier.

"Be careful, I think he has more than one antenna set up for a vortex. He's messing with that remote of his."

"Damn! We have to stop him before he activates it."

"Give me your speed now." Ranma said.

"Find the towers first. Once I give you my speed I'll take the towers down." Max said.

"Alright." Ranma said with a nod. They scanned the countryside for several seconds before they spotted the second tower. "There!"

"I see." Max yelled as he raced for the tower. "Go get him kid!" Max yelled and shifted his momentum over to Ranma. Max came to a stop just a few yards from the towers and quickly got to work disconnecting several wires.

Black lightning surrounded Ranma as he shot forward. "RAAAGGGHHHAAAAAAAAAAA!" Ranma yelled as he raced at Rival.

The insane maniac was about to attack Max for interfering when he heard Ranma coming. He changed targets and took off, he had another tower that he could use, but it was in California, hidden among the giant red oaks. They were soon racing along the highway, quickly making their way across the country.

Rival was amazed that Ranma could even access the speed force, let alone even keep up with him. All the while, the two of them were getting faster and faster as they out raced cars on the freeway, blew through towns, and broke a dozen land speed records. Ranma focused on Rival as he ran, ignoring the low hum of energy as the he left a trail of black and red electricity a thousand mile long.

"Better run faster old man, or I'll catch you!"

"Nothing is faster than me now brat! I've won, but playing with you is so much more fun. Do you think for an instant that those are the only antennas I have set up? My grand daughter got me all the parts I needed to build several of them."

Ranma grinned, which made Rival nervous. He wasn't sure why either. Growling, he picked up speed as they headed for the coast.

oooooooooo

Back in Central City, Batman finished wrapping several charges to each of the antennas. Disconnecting the wires wouldn't work while the vortex was active, so he had to blow it up.

He glanced at the swirling vortex above him and hoped that the charges wouldn't cause some kind of backlash either. After placing the final blob of plastic explosive, he plugged in the final wire. His cape flapped and fluttered as he raced out of the empty lot, ducked behind a wall, and pulled

a little remote out.

He pressed a button…

oooooooooo

The instant the towers went down Ranma felt a massive surge of Speed Force energy surround his body, sending a wave of black lighting stretching all around him. At the same time his speed was increasing exponentially. Rival cried out in shock as he started to lose speed, but by the time he realized what happened Ranma was already on him.

"Got you now Rival!" Wrapping his arms around the monster, Ranma lifted Rival into the air and placed him on his shoulder, and then began to increased his speed even more. His feet, already a blur, vanished from sight as he shot off the end of the coast of the United States and raced out over the ocean. All the while increasing speed with every step he took.

Within less than a second Ranma raced around the planet picking up more and more speed, moving so fast that even things like color started to go black and white, slowly turning to pure light and energy. To Rival barely any time had passed at all as Ranma sucked the speed force from the old man's body to boost his speed.

Within a minute Ranma was running so fast that he raced three times around the planet in less than a second. And then four times in less than a second and strained to reach the speed he'd only ever reached once before. Energy exploded from his eyes and trailed behind him as he neared the speed of light, racing around the planet five times per second.

Even his special shoes were beginning to smolder at this speed, but Ranma didn't care, he had just a tiny little bit more to go. With a scream he pushed beyond the final wall of speed and the world turned into pure light. He heard Rival scream again, but ignored it as…

…a wall of pure energy rose up before him in the blink of an eye. They slammed into it and for a split second the world turned to pure ecstasy and bliss as they passed through.

Into the Speed Force.

Ranma came to a stop and threw rival down. There was no up or down, side to side, or anything else, just pure speed. Ranma didn't relax to much as he let the speed force saturate his body. He watched as Rival slowly sat up and looked around.

"What?" Fear filled the old man's face for a second as he came to his feet and looked around.

"Welcome to the speed force Rival." Ranma said.

The old man paled. "No…NO!"

"This is where you belong." Ranma said coldly. "The Speed Force wants you, I can feel its need urging me on. This is where you belong."

Rival lunged at him, but by the time his hand was close to Ranma's face it was already unraveling, absorbed into the speed force. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Ranma stood there for several seconds as Rival vanished from sight and his last word seemed to fade away until only pure speed force was left in its place. He reached out and touched some of the energy around him. It caressed his hand and body like a long lost friend and wished him luck.

He nodded, smiled, and shot forward as he tapped into pure speed. At first he didn't know what to expect, but then he looked to the side and saw that several speedsters were racing along beside him. He recognized Johnny Quick instantly as they ran. Beside him was a man in blue and black with an evil grin on his face, glorying in the run itself.

Another racer came up beside Ranma and for a second Ranma thought he was The Flash, Wally West. The only difference was that this Flash was wearing a simply red body suit and smiling. That and his Ki signature, while slightly different, wasn't anything like Wally, so that meant he might just be that other guy. "Barry Allen…"

"Wanna race?"

"Hell yeah." Ranma yelled and poured on the speed, the two of them leaving the others in the dust.

Twin laughs echoed over the speed force landscape.

oooooooooo

He passed through another wall and reemerged into the real world, racing around the planet just like when he entered the speed force. Glorying in the sheer speed of moving faster than the speed of light, he made his way around the planet a dozen times, before heading back to Central City.

In no time at all he was standing before Jay's house and wasn't winded at all. He made his way up the walk and went inside. Joan was sitting in a chair beside the couch keeping an eye on her husband. "Ranma, you made it."

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, has Max made it back yet?"

"I haven't seen him. Jay's still out cold from that blow to the head I'm fraid."

Walking over to the couch Ranma took another look at his teacher. "He'll be fine by tomorrow."

"I called one of his friends in the JSA and they said someone would be by in a couple of hours to look at him."

He nodded. "I need some food."

Joan was more than happy to make him a full course dinner. He was just finishing up when Max Mercury came by. "Ah Ranma, good to see you again."

"Hey max." Ranma said. "Figured you would be here before I was."

"Had a couple of things to take care of first. Batman is on his way back to Gotham by the way. He wouldn't listen to me when I tried to tell him about his problem."

"I'm not surprised, he'll need to be reminded by someone he would trust."

"He doesn't trust anyone."

Sighing, Ranma shrugged. "That's one of the first signs, then paranoia, and violent rages."

"Would you mind if I told the JLA about this? Or you could do it yourself, I thin they would listen to you now that you've taken down your first major bad guy."

Ranma snorted. "Yeah right."

"I'm serious."

He shrugged and didn't say anything.

"You entered the speed force today kid, I felt the surge as the barrier was breached. It was unlike anything I've ever felt before, what happened while you were in there?"

"Well…Rival didn't know what was going on at first, but once he figured it out he was completely absorbed into the speed force, becoming one with it."

"So he's dead." Max looked a little depressed about that.

"I don't think he is." Ranma said.

"Why?"

"Well I was absorbed into the speed force once myself and I'm still alive. I think he just became pure speed. As you know being in the speed force is like going to heaven. I doubt he'll ever pull himself back together enough even remember his own name, let alone escape."

Max nodded. "I ran across Bart helping get people to the hospital. He tried to help us out, but we were moving faster than even he could run."

Ranma laughed a little. "I'll need to give him a few pointers. I learned quite a bit while I was inside the speed force for a second time."

"Care to talk about it."

"Not right now. It doesn't feel like something I should tell anyone. Let's just say I learned some really big secrets and leave it at that. Wally hasn't even touched the secrets of the speed force yet. He's a bit dense isn't he?"

Max laughed. "Yeah, he doesn't like to listen to others."

"Well, I've got all my memories back as well."

"Oh? I thought you got them back earlier."

"So did I, but now I remember everything, from the day I was born until today. Entering the speed force fixed my head in some way. Here in a day or two I'm going to go and look for my father and beat the hell out of him."

"Why?"

"He's deserves it." Ranma growled.

"Ah."

Ranma nodded. "Did Batman have anything to say before he left?"

"Well, he did say that he would be watching you."

This just made Ranma shrug. "He is paranoid."

"True."

"Oh, what ever happened to Rival's grand daughter?"

"I…don't know."

"I left her to help you guys out. I hope she's all right, I never got a chance to get her to the police."

"Well she might pop up again. Most criminals do."

"Well Rival gave her the ability to tap into the speed force, just like him. Without those enhancements."

"Oh that's just great. Another super speed criminal, it's just what the twin cities need."

Ranma stood up and stretched a little, rubbing his back. "I need a shower. We can make some decisions on where to go from here, tomorrow."

"Hey Ranma, you need a superhero name."

"No I don't." He yelled back.

"Just pick something, we can always change it." Max yelled back.

"Ion, photon, or even Warp Speed, I don't care! The names are silly!" Ranma snapped back and grumbled a few choice words under his breath.

Max and Joan Just laughed.

oooooooooo

The End

Notes: Gotta end it at some point. As with comic book stories, it has a little bit of a cliffhanger, just in case it's ever continued. While in the speed force, Ranma meet Barry Allen, or an impression of him. As the most famous speedster ever, I just had to have the two of them meet up. This has several implications that aren't or won't be expanded on any time soon. Several speedsters have been absorbed into the speed force over the years, but I don't know them all by name. Savant thought the speed force made him a god, while Quick wouldn't even acknowledge that it existed. And a few others that I just can't remember.

When Wally left the speed force he went on a little time travel trip and went to the past to meet himself as a kid. I was thinking of doing something like this with Ranma, having him go back to the day he first got his powers, but decided against it, the 'Lame' kept hitting me over the head if I even started writing it. So I left the fic open ended instead, that way a sequel would be easier if I ever decided to do one. As with Prime Attitude, It's possible, it just depends on if I have the energy to do it.

Which is iffy right now.

Someone is bound to bring up the clothing issue. Ranma running around in normal clothing all day should have had friction burning his clothing off, or something to that effect. Not quite true, that only happens when speedsters don't concentrate enough. They all generate a low level force field that protects them a little bit. Ranma was doing okay until he had to push beyond his limits to save Joan, which in turn ruined his clothing. And gave me an excuse to get him in costume. Anyway, Jay runs around in a pair of jeans and a red shirt, noting special about them at all, even his world famous hat is normal.


End file.
